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I H  €  r  ROT  E  STA  N  T  C  H  U  It.CH 
IN  GeftMANY 


Rcvi  G&wqci  H.Schodcfe.PiilX 


PRINCETON,  N.  J.  **y 


Purchased   by  the 
jyj.      ra .1. _„A   i v   k'^nnfidv  Church   History   Fund. 

BX  8020  .S5  1901 

Schodde,  George  Henry,  1854 J 

1917. 
The  Protestant  church  in 

Hprmanv 


THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCH 
IN  GERMANY. 


A   GENERAL   SURVEY. 


Professor  GEORGE   H.  SCHODDE,  Ph.  D.   (Leipzig). 


PHILADELPHIA,  PA.: 
LUTHERAN    PUBLICATION   SOCIETY. 


Copyright,  1901 


The  Lutheran  Publication  Society. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 


This  little  book  aims  at  giving  only  a  bird'  s-eye 
view  of  the  Protestant  Church  of  Germany,  but  it 
is  hoped  that  the  account  is  reasonably  correct  and 
reliable.  The  greatest  difficulty  was  found  in 
' '  the  embarrassment  of  riches ' '  offered  by  the 
subject  under  consideration,  and  many  matters 
have  been  merely  mentioned  or  passed  over  en- 
tirely that  would  have  merited  notice  and  con- 
sideration. Some  features  of  the  Church  life  in 
the  land  of  Luther  are  made  prominent  which  do 
not  ordinarily  come  under  the  observation  of  the 
English  reader  ;  bat  just  these  constitute  one  of 
the  strongest  sides  of  the  Christianity  of  Germany. 

The  Author. 


ttbe  Protestant  Cbuccb  in  (ScrmatiB. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. 
Historical  Preview 5 


CHAPTER  II. 
Organization  and  Government 23 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Confessional  Status 35 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Theology  of  German  Protestantism 47 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Protestant  versus   the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
in  Germany 59 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  German  Protestant  Church  and  Foreign  Missions    68 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Inner  Mission  Work 78 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
National  Church  Organizations 104 


THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCH 
IN  GERMANY. 


CHAPTER  I: 

AN    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW. 

The    Protestant    Church   in    Germany   can    be 
understood  only  in  the  light  of  its  history.     What 

it  is  nOW  it  has  beCOme  through    Protestantism  and  its 

the  historical  development  of  the  History. 

past  centuries.  Xot  only  do  its  confessions,  prin- 
ciples, and  spirit  strike  their  root  deep  into  Ref- 
ormation soil,  but  also  the  various  Protestant 
State  Churches  in  the  land  of  Luther,  in  their 
organization  and  government,  can,  as  a  rule,  trace 
their  origin  to  that  period.  In  name  indeed  the 
Pr<  itestant,  or,  as  it  is  more  correctly  called,  the 
Evangelical  Church  of  Germany,  dates  from  the 
sixteenth  century  ;  but  in  its  innermost  nature 
and  ideal  character  it  was  a  revival  of  the  Church 
of  the  Apostolic  age.  Nothing  was  further  from 
the  purposes  of  Luther  and  his  helpers  than  the 
establishment  of  a  new  Church.  The  work  of 
the  Reformation  was  substantially  a  break  with 
the  corrupted  Christianity  as  developed  and 
fostered  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  its 
hierarchy  and  a  return  to  the  pure  teachings  and 
(6) 


6  THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

tenets  of  the  New  Testament.  It  was  a  restora- 
tion and  re-establishment  of  the  faith  once  de- 
livered to  the  saints.  It  did  not  purpose  to  preach 
any  new  dogma  or  doctrine,  but  merely  to  recall 
the  Christian  Church  to  its  original  creed  and  re- 
construct it  upon  the  foundations  laid  by  Christ 
and  the  Apostles.  The  Protestant  Church  was  not 
intended  to  be  something  new,  but  only  the  return 
to  something  old. 

But  the  realization  of  this  high  purpose  neces- 
sitated also  a  radical  change  in  the  external  or- 

organization  of  ganization  of  the  Church.  The 
Protestant  churches.  Church  of  Rome  had  long  ceased 
to  be  a  purely  spiritual  body  ;  the  errors  of  its 
teachings  were  not  confined  to  theological  tenets, 
but  in  its  hierarchy  with  the  Pope  at  its  head  it 
had  established  what  was  practically  a  great  polit- 
ical machinery  that  ruled  with  autocratic  power 
the  destinies  of  the  people  and  the  churches.  A 
restoration  of  the  original  teachings  of  Christianity 
was  impossible  without  a  thorough  reorganization 
of  the  Church  also.  There  were  some  among  the 
leaders  of  the  Reformation,  and,  among  them, 
Melanchthon,  who  at  times  were  inclined,  for  the 
sake  of  peace,  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of 
the  Pope  ' '  by  human  right, ' '  but  not  by  divine 
right,  providing  that  he  would  permit  the  free 
preaching  of  the  Gospel ;  but  this  view  never 
gained  any  firm  foothold  in  the  Protestant  Church. 
The  hierarchical  system  was  so  intimately  inter- 
woven with  the  corrupt  teachings  of  Rome  that 
it  was  entirely  impossible  to  break  with  the  latter 
and  not  at  the  same  time  do  the  same  thing  with 
the  former. 

This  necessary  reorganization  of  the  Church, 
without  which  the  Gospel  could  never  have  been 
restored   to   pulpit   and   pew,  through   historical 


AN    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  7 

causes,  was  effected  chiefly  through  the  political 
states  and  their  heads.  Humanly  speaking,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  Establishment  of 
reform  the  Church  purely  as  a  state  churches. 
spiritual  organization  and  without  the  strong  arm 
of  the  state  authorities  and  the  princes.  It  was 
providential  in  the  extreme  that  at  the  period 
when  the  recognized  head  and  heads  of  the  Church, 
from  the  Pope  and  the  cardinals  down  to  the 
parish  priest,  were  really  the  most  dangerous  foes 
of  true  Christianity,  that  under  these  direful  cir- 
cumstances such  men  as  the  Elector  of  Saxony, 
the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  and  other  noble  pro- 
tectors and  defenders  of  the  evangelical  cause 
arose  and  staked  their  lives  and  their  exalted  posi- 
tions in  order  that  the  truth  could  have  full  sway. 
or,  at  any  rate,  equal  rights  with  the  old  errors  to 
be  heard.  "Without  these  heroes  to  back  Luther 
and  his  cause  it  would  seem  that  the  Reformation 
would  have  been  crushed.  Quite  naturally,  then, 
the  Reformation  found  entrance  into  the  various 
German  states  at  different  times,  and  the  reorgani- 
zation of  the  churches  took  place  in  accordance 
with  and  along  the  lines  of  the  political  divisions 
of  the  country.  Germany  at  that  time,  as  also  at 
the  present,  was  a  confederation  or  union  of  sev- 
eral dozens  of  states  and  free  cities,  which  alto- 
gether constituted  the  empire.  State  Churches 
were  accordingly  established  just  as  the  princes 
permitted  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  For  this 
reason  there  never  has  been  in  Germany  one  united 
Protestant  Church  for  the  whole  country,  and 
there  is  no  such  organization  even  now  in  the  re- 
established empire.  There  always  have  been  and 
there  still  are  as  many  Protestant  State  Churches, 
and  even  more,  than  there  are  separate  states  in 
the  empire.     This  is  the  condition  of  affairs  that 


8  THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

was  introduced  by  the  needs  and  necessities  of  the 
times  during  the  period  of  the  Reformation,  and 
this  has  remained  so  ever  since.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  this  protection  of  powerful  and  pious 
princes  was  a  great  blessing  to  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  that  period  ;  but  such  a  protectorate 
of  state  authorities  over  the  Church  could  not  but 
prove  harmful  when  these  princes  themselves  no 
longer  yielded  themselves  to  Gospel  influences  en- 
tirely, but  used  or  abused  the  churches  for  politi- 
cal ends.  The  principle  of  "  Co  jus  regio  ejus  re- 
ligio"  which  held  universal  sway  during  that 
age,  and  which  practically  means  that  the  ruler  of 
a  country  has  a  right  to  decide  what  the  religion 
of  his  subjects  shall  be,  quite  naturally  worked 
sad  havoc,  when  for  the  satisfaction  of  political 
ambitions  a  prince  would  change  his  ecclesiastical 
affiliation  and  compel  his  subjects  to  do  the  same. 
In  the  later  years  of  the  Reformation  period  there 
are  some  sad  examples  of  losses  of  important  ter- 
ritory to  the  Lutheran  Church  through  these 
causes.  In  this  regard,  at  any  rate,  there  has 
been  a  marked  improvement  in  modern  times, 
and  no  political  ruler  would  dare  to  apply  this 
principle  now.  Saxony,  the  mother  country  of 
the  Reformation,  has  for  two  hundred  years  been 
ruled  by  Catholic  princes  and  kings,  but  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  for  that  reason  never 
been  able  to  regain  the  foothold  here  that  was  lost 
by  her  in  the  sixteenth  century.  In  the  Reforma- 
tion age  the  advocacy  of  a  separation  of  state  and 
church  would  have  been  an  historical  anomaly. 
The  times  were  not  ripe  for  such  a  principle  or 
practice,  and  historical  conditions  would  have 
made  the  application  impossible,  or  at  any  rate 
more  than  harmful  and  possibly  suicidal  to  the 
Church.     The  church  of   the  Reformation  could 


AN    HISTORICAL   PREVIEW 


9 


not  do  otherwise  than  take  the  form  of  State 
Churches,  and  this  form  has  been  retained  to  the 
present  day. 

The  Reformation    of    the    sixteenth  century  in 
Germany  was  essentially  the  work  of  the  Witten- 
berg monk.       It  Was   a  Lutheran       The  Reformation 
Reformation.        Luther  is,  at  least  Essentially  Lutheran. 

as  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  not  one  of  the  Re- 
formers, but  he  is  the  Reformer.  Not  only  was 
the  kind  of  work  he  did,  and  the  character  of  the 
religious  movement  he  inaugurated,  superior  to 
that  which  is  connected  with  the  names  of  Zwingli 
and  of  Calvin,  because  it  was  based  upon  a  more 
evangelical  appreciation  of  the  central  truths  of 
the  Scriptures  and  accompanied  by  a  keener  ap- 
preciation of  the  lessons  of  church  history,  but 
the  Reformation  that  was  originally  established  in 
the  various  German  lands  was  distinctly  Lutheran 
in  character.  It  is  true  that  later  on  the  Reformed 
Church  gained  considerable  strength  in  a  number 
of  German  states,  but  in  all  of  these  this  was 
done  only  by  crowding  out  the  Lutheran  preach- 
ing and  teaching  that  had  originally  wrested  this 
territory  from  the  hands  of  Rome.  It  must  be 
frankly  acknowledged  that  the  Lutheran  Reforma- 
tion in  Germany  lias  not  only  victories  to  report 
but  also  losses  to  deplore.  These  losses  are  not 
all  to  be  charged  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  also 
to  that  Protestant  Church  which  came  from  Zurich 
and  from  Geneva.  The  counter-Reformation,  or 
the  Reaction,  which,  after  Luther's  death,  set  in 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Roman  Catholic  leaders, 
and  especially  of  those  relentless  foes  of  the  truth, 
the  Jesuits,  by  might  and  main,  and  by  the  power 
of  the  sword  in  most  cases,  compelled  the  return 
of  tens  of  thousands  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
What   is    evidently    good    authority    claims    that 


10        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN   GERMANY. 

when  the  Wittenberg  Reformer  breathed  his  last 
fully  nine-tenths  of  Germany  was  Protestant, 
The  fact  that  now  only  two-thirds  are  Protestant 
shows  how  successful  this  reactionary  movement 
of  the  Roman  hosts  was.  In  some  of  the  Ger- 
man provinces  of  Austria  the  Protestant  Churches 
were  practically  wiped  out.  Only  in  our  day  has 
a  new  reformation  been  inaugurated  in  these  dis- 
tricts, with  the  battle-cry,  ' '  Away  from  Rome, ' ' 
and  thousands  have  returned  to  the  evangelical 
faith,  which  their  ancestors  were  compelled  to 
forswear  two  hundred  and  more  years  ago,  and 
the  memory  of  which  brutal  compulsion  has  been 
one  of  the  inspiring  factors  and  forces  in  the 
spread  of  this  promising  Protestant  propaganda 
in  Austria.  But  whatever  territory  the  Reformed 
Church  occupies  in  Germany  it  holds  not  as  an 
original  possession,  but  only  as  Lutheran  ground, 
which,  through  the  power  of  princes,  it  has  ac- 
quired for  itself.  The  Reformed  Church,  as  such, 
made  no  conquests  from  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Germany.  The  original  work  of  re- 
forming the  Church  of  this  country  was  performed 
by  Luther  and  his  coadjutors.  Whatever  activity 
was  displayed  by  the  followers  of  a  Zwingli  and  a 
Calvin  in  this  work  was  rather  in  opposition  to 
Luther's  methods  and  manners  than  helpful  to  his 
cause.  There  always  had  been  a  greater  or  less 
disharmony  between  Wittenberg  and  the  Swiss 
Reformatory  movement ;  and  when  Luther,  at 
Marburg,  refused  the  hand  of  Zwingli  and  any 
co-operation  with  his  propaganda,  with  the  words  : 
' '  Ye  have  a  different  spirit  than  we  ! ' '  he  uttered 
a  great  truth,  the  correctness  of  which  has  been 
confirmed  by  history.  None  of  the  efforts  at  a 
union  between  the  Lutheran  and  the  Reformed 
Churches  were  really  successful  at  that  period  or 


AX    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  11 

in  any  later  age,  simply  because  of  this  disparity 
of  spirit,  which  caused  the  Reformed  Church, 
later  on,  to  seize  for  itself  territory  and  countries 
that  had  been  won  for  the  Gospel  by  the  Lutheran 
propaganda. 

This  fact  that  Luther  is  the  Reformer  of  Ger- 
many has  been  of  deep  significance  in  determin- 
ing   the  principles    and    Spirit  Of     The  Two  Principles 

the  Protestant  Churches  of  that  of  the  Reformation, 
country.  In  its  theology  and  in  ite  church  life  it 
is  Wittenberg  and  not  Geneva  that  has  indelibly 
left  its  impress.  Historically  the  Protestant 
Church  of  Germany  was  confessedly  Lutheran, 
however  much  this  characteristic  feature  may 
have  been  modified  at  various  times  and  places 
by  later  causes.  This  already  appears  in  the  two 
great  cardinal  principles  of  the  Reformation, 
which  are  most  expressive  of  its  genius  and  inner- 
most spirit,  These  are  the  material  and  the 
formal  principle  with  which  the  Lutheran  and 
the  Protestant  Church  must  stand  and  fall. 

The  material  principle  is  justification  by  faith 
alone,    without    any  merit  or  worthiness  on  the 
part  of  man.     Genuine  Protest-        The  Material 
antism  gives  all  the  glory  to  God  Principle, 

in  the  work  of  redemption  and  salvation.  It 
finds  no  basis  for  hope  or  deliverance  save  in  the 
love  of  God  and  the  merits  of  Christ  Jesus.  Over 
against  the  errors  of  Rome,  which  credits  man 
with  a  part  of  salvation,  and  demands  good 
works  as  a  necessary  prerequisite,  the  evangelical 
position  of  the  Protestant  and  Lutheran  Church 
also  demands  good  works,  not  as  a  condition  of 
salvation,  indeed,  but  as  the  natural  expression 
of  gratitude  for  the  redemption  that  has  been 
secured  without  money  and  without  price.  With 
Paul,   the  Church  believes  that  man  is  justified 


12        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

by  faith  alone — and  this  was  the  1  tattle-cry  of 
Protestantism  from  the  beginning — but,  with 
James,  it  believes,  too,  that  faith  without  works 
is  dead.  But  faith  itself,  as  also  that  which  faith 
gives,  is  purely  the  work  of  God's  grace  and 
mercy.  In  this  fundamental  proposition,  the  de- 
velopment of  which  was  not  the  result  of  learned 
study  of  the  Scriptures,  but  largely  the  outcome 
of  the  spiritual  experience  and  contests  of  Luther 
himself,  the  Church  of  the  Reformation  took  a 
decided  stand  against  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  in 
this  matter  still  lies  an  essential  and  irreconcilable 
difference  between  the  two  communions. 

The  formal  principle  of  the  Reformation  teaches 
that   the    Bible   is   the   sole   source  of   Christian 
The  Formal  doctrine,   of   what   the    believer 

Principle.  must  accept  and  do.     This  posi- 

tion was  chiefly  taken  against  that  of  tradition- 
alism as  taught  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  which 
practically  put  the  traditions  of  the  past  not  only 
on  an  equality  with  the  Scriptures  but  above 
them,  and  thus  made  the  word  of  man  the  arbiter 
over  the  Word  of  God.  Luther  and  his  friends 
raised  up  the  standard  of  the  Word  again,  made 
that  the  only  and  last  court  of  appeal  in  all  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  Christian  creed  and  deed,  and 
thus  re-established  the  confession  and  the  faith  of 
the  Church  upon  the  only  safe  and  unshaken 
foundation,  the  revealed  Word  of  the  ever-living 
God.  In  conformity  with  this  principle  the 
Church  of  the  Reformation  rejected  the  Apocrypha 
of  the  Old  Testament,  a  collection  of  books  written 
between  the  close  of  the  Old  and  the  beginning  of 
the  New  Testament  eras,  but  never  accepted  by  the 
Jews,  or  the  New  Testament,  as  of  divine  origin. 
Many  of  these  books  are  excellent  writings,  and 
for  this  reason  Luther  retained  them  in  his  trans- 


AN    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  13 

lation,  but  especially  states  that  they  are  not  to 
be  considered  as  equal  to  the  canonical  books.  It 
\v;is.  again,  this  principle  of  the  sole  authority  of 
the  Bible  that  led  Luther,  in  the  very  beginning 
of  his  great  work,  to  undertake  the  translation  of 
the  Scriptures  into  the  German,  and  probably  no 
single  agent  accomplished  so  much  for  the  cause 
of  the  Gospel  truth  in  those  heroic  days  as  did 
this  magnificent  version,  which  to  this  day  is  one 
of  the  great  classics  of  literature. 

But  the  Church  of  the  Reformation  found  more 
in  the  Scriptures  than  only  the  sources  of  divine 
truth.      The    Lutheran    is    the       The  Means  of 
Church  of  the  means  of  grace,  Grace, 

and  the  only  one  among  the  many  that  has  learned 
to  appreciate  the  great  truth,  that  God,  as  a  God 
of  order,  has  chosen  certain  means  and  mediums 
through  which  He  sends  His  Spirit  and  performs 
His  work  in  the  hearts  of  men.  The  Word  of 
God  is  the  truth,  but  also  the  life,  and  the  Ref- 
ormation developed  and  unfolded  the  great  fact 
that  it  is  through  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments 
that  God  has  seen  fit  to  have  His  Spirit  enter  into 
the  souls  of  men,  and  that  when  these  means  are 
present  then,  too,  the  Spirit,  who  alone  can  ac- 
complish the  ends  of  divine  mercy  in  the  heart 
of  man,  is  present  also,  and  accomplishes  His 
end.  The  Church  believes  and  teaches  that  the 
Spirit  is  present  in  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments, 
and  therefore  it  depends  upon  these  divinely  or- 
dained means  to  do  God's  Avork  among  men. 
This  doctrine  of  the  means  of  grace  has  been  a 
great  blessing  to  the  Church,  as  are  all  truths  of 
God,  as  it  has  kept  the  Church  steady  and  firm 
in  the  use  of  the  divinely  ordered  methods  of 
work,  and  has  kept  the  Church  safely  anchored 
when  the  storms  of  sensationalism  or  new  meas- 


14        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

urisms  of  all  kinds  threatened  to  loosen  it  from 
its  moorings. 

In  this  principle  the  Lutheran  Church  of  the 
Reformation  also  takes  a  stand  against  the  Re- 

The  Lutheran  formed  Church,  which  does  not 
versus  the  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  means 

Reformed  Church.  o  1  •     ,     •         ,,      ,    ., 

oi  grace,  but  maintains  that  the 
Spirit  in  His  operations  is  not  bound  by  certain 
mediums  or  instruments,  but  may  and  does  operate 
in  any  way  whatsoever.  A  Lutheran  is  always  sure, 
when  the  Word  of  God  is  preached,  or  read,  or 
studied,  or  when  the  Sacraments  are  rightly  ad- 
ministered, that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  also  present 
and  ready  to  do  His  mission  ;  the  Reformed  Chris- 
tian can  never  have  this  certainty,  as  he  does  not 
know  in  what  way  or  manner  the  Spirit  may 
manifest  Himself. 

This   is  but  one  of  the  differences  which  the 

Lutheran  and  the  Reformed  Churches  of  the  Ref- 

Lord's  supper  and     ormation      period      developed. 

predestination.  Best  known  are  the  great  differ- 
ences with  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  and  to  predestination  ;  but  here,  too, 
fundamentally  and  at  heart,  the  difference  per- 
tained to  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures.  When 
Luther,  at  the  great  debate  in  Marburg  on  the 
Lord's  Supper,  wrote  upon  the  table  the  words  : 
' '  This  is  my  body  !  "  he  was  doing  nothing  but 
emphasizing  the  formal  principle  of  the  Reforma- 
tion movement,  of  which  he  was  the  acknowl- 
edged leader.  To  the  Scriptures  he  submitted 
absolutely,  and  throughout  kept  reason  captive 
under  faith  ;  and  this  has  been  the  characteristic 
feature  of  the  Lutheran  Church  at  all  times. 

In  the  many  controversies  that  so  sadly  and 
evilly  divided  the  Protestantism  of  the  Reforma- 
tion age  the  issue  at  stake  was  really   the  Word 


AX    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  15 

of  God.  In  fact,  -the  maintenance  of  the  ma- 
terial principle  was  also  an  application  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  absolute  authority  The  Lutheran  a  Bible 
of  the  Scriptures.     Over  against  church, 

both  the  Church  of  Rome  and  the  Reformed 
Church  the  Lutheran  at  all  times,  as  did  Luther 
himself,  has  endeavored  to  maintain  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  these  alone  as  a  basis  for  the  Avhole 
ecclesiastical  superstructure.  In  one  word,  the 
Lutheran  Reformation  purposed  to  re-establish 
the  Church  on  the  foundation  of  the  prophets 
and  the  apostles,  of  which  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
corner-stone. 

It  was  also  on  account  of  its  adherence  to  the 
Scriptural  principle  that  the  Church  of  the  Ref- 
ormation   issued     a     number    of      The  Confessions  of 

confessional   writings   in  which  the  Church- 

its  faith  officially  found  expression.  Like  all  the 
historic  confessions  of  Christianity,  from  the 
Apostles'  Creed  down,  the  Lutheran  Confessions, 
too,  were  prepared,  not  with  the  purpose  of  adding 
to  the  Scriptures,  nor  to  put  a  burden  upon  the 
consciences  of  men,  nor  to  arouse  theological  con- 
troversy, but  to  declare  publicly  against  the  mis- 
interpretations and  false  accusations  of  others,  the 
faith  which  the  Church  had  drawn  from  the  Scrip- 
tures. And  like  all  truly  Scriptural  creeds,  the 
Lutheran  Confessions  have  been  a  great  blessing 
to  the  Church  in  confirming  and  establishing  the 
truth. 

These  Confessions  in  the  order  in  which  they 
are  usually  found  in  the  Book  of  Concord — though 
this  is  not  the  historical  succes-  Book  of 

sion   in    their   preparation — are  Concord, 

the  following  :  The  Augsburg  Confession,  the 
Apology  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  the  Schmal- 
kald   Articles,   the   Small  Catechism,    the   Large 


1()        THE    PROTESTANT   CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

Catechism,  the  Formula  of  Concord.  In  addition 
to  these  six  particular  Confessions,  the  Book  of 
Concord  also  contains  the  three  (Ecumenical 
Creeds,  viz. :  The  Apostles' ,  the  Nicene,  and  the 
Athanasian,  the  Church  incorporating  these  ven- 
erable documents  among  her  symbols  in  order 
thereby  to  evidence  its  entire  agreement  with  the 
faith  confessed  by  the  old  Church. 

The  most  important  of  the  special  Lutheran 
symbolical  writings  is  the  Augsburg  Confession  of 

The  Augsburg        1530,    written  by  Melanchthon 

CFundSaSrn°enntaie  on  tne  Dasis  °f  earlier  documents 
confession.  by   Luther,   and   publicly  read 

before  the  emperor  and  the  representatives  of  the 
empire  in  diet  assembled.  It  is  the  only  one, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Small  Catechism 
of  Luther,  among  the  Confessions  that  has  been 
officially  accepted  as  symbolical  by  each  and  every 
branch  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  all  countries 
and  at  all  times.  Its  acceptance  has  even  gone 
beyond  the  boundary  lines  of  the  Lutheran 
Church,  and  there  is  certainly  no  special  Protest- 
ant Confession  that  has  the  vast  hosts  of  adherents 
of  which  the  Augsburg  Confession  can  boast,  and 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  if  the  va- 
rious families  and  denominations  of  Protestantism 
ever  get  ready  to  unite  in  one  body,  the  Augsburg 
Confession,  both  by  virtue  of  its  historical  dignity 
and  the  Biblical  character  of  its  contents,  would 
constitute  the  proper  basis  for  such  a  union. 

The  other  Confessions  of  the  Church  are  further 
developments  of  the  evangelical  teachings  of  the 
The  other  Foundation    Confession   of    the 

confessions.  Church.  They  unfold  the  prin- 
ciples found  in  this  symbol,  and  their  claim  foi 
acceptance  rests  upon  what  is  already  involved  in 
the  adoption  of  the  Augsburg  Confession.     It  is 


AX    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  17 

for  this  reason  that  countries  like  the  Scandinavian 
lands,  which  have  never  formally  adopted  the 
Formula  of  Concord,  cannot  be  denied  the  name 
of  Lutheran.  The  full  and  unequivocal  adoption 
of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  with  all  that  this  ac- 
ceptance implies,  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  the 
claims  of  Lutheranism. 

The  other  symbols  were  added  in  later  years, 
because  the  exigencies  of  the  times  demanded 
special    utterances    on    subjects  Their 

in  public  prominence,  as,  when  Purpose, 

in  view  of  a  promised  free  Church  Council,  the 
Schmalkald  Articles  were  officially  prepared  to 
state  the  Church's  convictions  in  reference  to  the 
claims  of  the  Pope  ;  or  when,  after  various  con- 
troversies on  doctrinal  matters  had  arisen  within 
and  without  the  Church,  as  occurred  soon  after 
Luther's  death,  it  was  found  necessary  to  develop 
the  Lutheran  doctrines  on  these  points  more 
closelv,  as  was  done  in  the  Formula  of  Concord, 
published  in  1580.  The  Apology,  a  thorough 
theological  document,  not  so  well  known  or 
appreciated  as  it  should  be,  was  written  in  reply 
to  the  objections  which  the  Papists  had  urged 
against  the  Augsburg  Confession.  The  two  Cate- 
chisms, both  of  which  are  probably  older  than 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  the  Large  antedating 
the  Small,  were  originally  private  writings  of 
Luther,  but  on  account  of  their  exceptional  value 
were  adopted  by  the  Church. 

Of  the  many  Confessions  that  were  issued  by 
the  different  branches  of  the  Reformed  Church, 
Germany    produced    that    one        The  Reformed 

Which     is     doubtless     the    best    of  Confessions. 

all  and  obtained   the  greatest  popularity,  namely, 
the  Heidelberg  Catechism.     But  ueither  this  nor 
any  other  Reformed  Confession  became  the  factor 
2 


18        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

in  German  religious  thought  and  life  that  can  be 
claimed  for  the  Lutheran  symbolical  books. 

The  Church  of   the  Reformation,  having  been 

established   and  organized  with  such  ideals  and 

Historical  principles,    has    gone    through 

?hrp0roSsTan0tf  many  vicissitudes  in  the  centu- 
church.  nes     that     have    passed     since 

Luther  nailed  his  ninety-five  theses  to  the  cathedral 
door  in  Wittenberg.  The  Protestant  Church  in 
Germany  has  developed  internally  and  externally, 
has  won  victories  and  has  encountered  defeats,  has 
progressed  and  again  has  gone  backward,  but  in  all 
of  these  changes  its  origins  and  fundamental 
principles  have  been  potent  factors  and  forces. 
As  Luther  had  prophetically  foreseen,  a  period  of 
external  persecution  came  shortly  after  his  death. 
The  leading  political  powers  were  antagonistic  to 
the  cause  of  the  Gospel  and  war  was  made  upon  the 
Protestant  states.  A  counter-reformation  was  in- 
augurated by  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  these 
machinations  and  brute  force  inflicted  serious 
damage  to  the  Protestant  cause. 

A  combination  of  these  hostile  forces  brought 
on  the  terrible  Thirty  Years'  War,  which  was  in- 
The  Thirty  Years'  tended  to  crush  the  Protestants 
War-  of    Germany   and    exterminate 

them,  as  the  Huguenots  were  in  the  bloody  St. 
Bartholomew  night  in  France,  in  1572  ;  but  the 
peace  of  Westphalia  was  not  unfavorable  to  the 
Protestant  cause  in  so  far  as  it  established  the  rule 
of  religious  liberty  for  the  empire.  In  these  dire 
distresses  during  this  period  the  noble  services  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Sweden  were,  humanly 
speaking,  the  salvation  of  German  Protestantism. 

Side  by  side  with  these  dangers  from  without 
came  disintegrating  elements  from  within  in  the 
shape  of  theological  schools  and  tendencies  that  to 


AX    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW. 


19 


a  greater  or  less  extent  endangered  the  purity  of 
the  Reformation  faith.  Not  a  few  of  these  dangers 
came  from  an  easily  understood  Theological 

weakness,  namely,  the  tend-  controversies.. 
ency  in  many  circles  to  compromise,  especially 
with  Calvinism,  in  the  hope  thereby  of  effecting 
an  external  union  against  the  aggressive  foes  of 
the  truth.  Many  of  these  dangers  were  averted 
1 » y  the  preparation  and  adoption  of  the  Formula 
of  Concord,  which  became  a  most  potent  factor 
for  peace  and  harmony  in  the  Church  and  did  not 
belie  its  name. 

It  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon  and  character- 
istic of  the  vital  power  of  Evangelical  Lutheran- 
ism  that  just  during  this  period        vitality  of  the 
of    danger    and    sufferings   the  Church-      _ 

Church  gave  ample  evidence  of  the  strength  of  its 
faith.  During  these  years  many  of  the  finest 
specimens  of  the  magnificent  hymnology  of  the 
Church  were  produced.  It  was  during  the  period 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  that  Paul  Gerhardt, 
that  prince  of  pious  singers,  lived  and  labored,  as 
also  did  many  others  whose  spiritual  songs  are  a 
lasting  treasure  to  the  Christians  of  all  succeeding 
generations.  The  Lutheran  Church,  too,  is  par- 
ticularly rich  in  its  abundance  of  liturgical  form- 
ulas for  public  worship,  and  it  was  during  this 
same  period  that  many  of  these  were  written  and 
introduced. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  dangers  that  threat- 
ened the  Church  from  within  and  without  was 
the  construction  of  the  system  of  doctrinal 
teachings  of  the  Church  on  a  grand  scale. 
In  the  magnificent  and  elaborate  works  of  a 
Chemnitz,  Hollaz,  Gerhardt,  and  others,  the  Lu- 
theran Church  has  a  literature  of  systematic  the- 
ology that  does  not  have   its  equal  in  any  other 


20        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

Church  communion.  These  giants  of  theologi- 
cal thought  and  research  have  given  systematic 
presentations  of  the  one  truth  of  the  Scriptures 
The  Great  that   have   not   been  surpassed 

Dogmaticians.  j  )V  any  iater  scnolars,  and  which, 
indeed,  on  the  whole,  are  more  Biblical  than  are 
the  most  lauded  productions  of  modern  theology. 
In  certain  phases  of  theological  research,  such  as 
the  appreciation  of  the  human  side  of  the  Scrip- 
tures and  of  the  historical  principle,  the  scholar- 
ship of  our  day  has  no  doubt  brought  to  light 
certain  features  of  the  Bible  and  of  Biblical  truth 
that  escaped  the  attention  of  the  Lutheran  fathers  ; 
but  the  latter  had  a  sharper  eye  for  that  which 
always  must  remain  the  centre  and  the  heart  of 
the  Word,  namely,  the  revelation  it  gives  of  the 
great  truths  of  the  redemption,  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  Trinity,  of  the  person  and  nature  of  Christ, 
of  the  work  of  atonement,  and,  in  short,  all  those 
holy  truths  that  only  revelation  can  give  and  did 
give.  The  attitude  of  the  old  Lutheran  theolo- 
gians over  against  the  Scriptures  was  in  strict 
conformity  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Church,  that  of  the  absolute  authority  of  the 
Scriptures.  These  were  the  last  and  final  court 
of  appeal  ;  and  for  the  great  theologians  of  the 
sixteenth  century  the  ' c  Thus  saith  the  Lord ' ' 
was  absolutely  decisive.  The  theology  of  the 
Lutheran  Church,  just  as  that  Church,  was  in- 
tensely Biblical. 

It  is  only  natural  that  a  reaction  against  such  a 
dogmatical  tendency  should  make  itself  felt  in  some 

The  Reaction  of       circles.     Just  to  what  extent  the 

pietism.  charge  raised  by  Pietism  against 

the  religious  life  of  the  period,   namely,  that  it 

was  characterized  by  a  ,k  dead  orthodoxy,"  is  true 

or  not,  has  been  differently  answered.     It  would 


AN    HISTORICAL    PREVIEW.  21 

only  be  in  harmony  with  the  history  of  human 
thought  in  general  and  of  religious  teachings  in 
particular,  if  there  had  been  some  actual  ground 
for  complaint  :  but  this  reaction  and  its  demand 
for  a  more  vital  piety  itself  degenerated  into  a 
more  or  less  pronounced  neglect  of  the  positive 
teachings  of  the  Scriptures. 

In  the  latter   half  of  the  seventeenth   century 
the  fair  and  fruitful  fields  of  German  Protestant- 
ism were  sadly  devastated  by  a      The  Rationalistic 
crude  kind   of    vulgar  rational-  Period- 

ism,  which  reflected,  in  the  theology  of  the  Church, 
largely  the  spirit  of  the  philosophy  taught  1  »y  the 
great  Konigsberg  Kant.  The  fundamental  theory 
of  this  school  made  men  the  measure  of  all  things, 
denied  the  formal  principle  of  the  Church  in  so 
far  as  the  divine  contents  of  the  Scriptures  are 
concerned.  Reason  became  the  arbiter  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  whatever  the  human  mind  and  its 
natural  powers  could  not  comprehend  was  either 
rejected  and  discarded,  or  misinterpreted  into 
something  that  reason  could  understand.  Large 
portions,  perhaps  the  larger  portions,  of  the  Ger- 
man Church,  for  the  time  being,  came  under  the 
baneful  influence  of  this  spiritual  blight. 

The  impetus  to  a  revival  of  evangelical  thought 
and  life  was,  at  least  outwardly,  given  by  the  sad 
experience  of  the  Germans  dur-  The  Revival  of 
ing  the  Napoleonic  wars.  While  Positive  Principles. 
in  its  most  widely  spread  operations,  especially 
as  championed  by  the  Berlin  theologian  Schleier- 
macher,  it  has  not  been  a  revival  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Protestantism  in  every  particular  and  in 
historical  fidelity,  but  rather  an  attempt  at  a  re- 
construction of  positive  Protestantism  along  more 
or  less  new  lines,  there  has  also  been  a  revival  of 
Lutheranism,  but  this,  too,  not  without  being  in- 


22         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

fiuenced  to  a  certain  extent  by  modern  philo- 
sophical and  critical  thought.  The  only  attempt 
to  revive,  in  every  particular  and  without  any 
regard  to  the  development  and  lessons  of  the  ups 
and  downs  of  the  past,  has  been  made  from  with- 
out, chiefly  by  the  establishment  of  a  Church 
independent  entirely  of  the  state,  to  a  certain 
extent,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Missouri  Synod 
of  America.  The  Breslau  and  the  Immanuel 
Synods  of  Independent  Lutherans,  which  have 
also  sprung  into  existence  since  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  come  nearest  to  a  com- 
plete revival  of  historic  Lutheranism  in  every 
particular,  of  all  the  movements  that  have  grown 
in  German  soil  itself.  But  all  of  these  move- 
ments have  been  within  limited  spheres  and  none 
can  lay  claim  to  national  expansion. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT. 

In  Germany  state  and  Church  are  united,  as  is 
the  case  everywhere  in  Europe  where  the  Prot- 
estant Church  is  officially  recog-  state  and 
nized.     This  is  true  not  only  of      Church  United- 
the  predominantly   Protestant  countries,  such  as 
the  German  Empire,  England,  Sweden,  Denmark, 
and  Norway,  but  also  where  the  Protestants  con- 
stitute the '  minority,  as  in  Austria,   France,   and 
Russia,     In  none  of  these  lands  is  the  Protestant 
Church  independent  of  state  control.     Only  there 
where  Protestantism  is  only  a  mission  church,  as  in 
Italy  with  the  historic  Waldensians,  and  in  Spain, 
is  there  no  connection  between  the  Church  as  such 
and  the  state,  and  in  these  cases  the  state  exercises 
only  those  rights  over  the  Church  which  it  does 
over  its  subjects  in  general,  while  of  course  at  the 
same  time  not  contributing  to  its  support.     It  is 
a   singular   phenomenon   that   in   the   Protestant 
lands  of  Europe  the  Catholic  Church  really  has 
greater   liberty    of   action   than    the    Protestants. 
The  Catholic "  Church  is  ruled  by  the  hierarchy, 
with  the  Pope  at  its  head  ;  but  through  its  Arch- 
bishops   and    Bishops    it    governs   the    National 
Churches,  subject  only  to  such  limitations  of  an  in- 
ferior importance  which  have  been  agreed  upon  in 
special  Concordats   between  the  Vatican   and  the 
political  authorities.     Even   in    Protestant   lands 
the  Protestant  Church  is  much  more  dependent  on 
(23) 


24        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

the  state,  and  is  much  more  controlled  by  the 
state  than  is  the  Catholic  Church,  and  this  is  one 
of  the  fruits  of  the  activity  of  that  organization, 
the  Roman  hierarchy,  which  a  prominent  German 
historian  has  declared  to  be  the  most  perfect  and 
effective  which  the  world  has  ever  seen.  An 
absolute  separation  between  Church  and  state  is 
found  only  in  America  and  Australia. 

This  condition  of  affairs  is  the  result  of  historic 
causes.     This  union  was  originally  established  in 
Historical  the    days   of   the    Reformation, 

causes.  when  it  seemed  to  be  absolutely 

necessary  for  the  planting  and  development  of  the 
Protestant  cause,  and  this  relation  has  continued 
ever  since.  Indeed,  there  has  not  been  in  the 
nearly  four  hundred  years  that  have  elapsed  since 
the  days  when  Protestantism  was  born  a  single 
pronounced  movement  in  Germany  aiming  at  a 
dissolution  of  this  historic  connection.  The  ab- 
sence of  any  agitation  for  this  purpose,  the  realiza- 
tion of  which  to  an  American  Christian  seems  to 
be  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished,  is  not  to 
be  ascribed  to  a  lack  of  study  on  the  subject,  The 
fact  of  the  matter  is  that  in  Germany  the  Chris- 
tians do  not  desire  such  a  separation.  They  believe 
in  the  union  of  Church  and  state,  and  maintain 
that  this  is  a  natural  and  certainly  beneficial  rela- 
tion. While  not  denying  that  the  Church  in  cer- 
tain respects  suffers  in  consequence  thereof,  Ger- 
man theologians  as  a  rule  believe  that  the  dangers 
and  results  of  an  entirely  independent  Church  or- 
ganization are  still  greater,  pointing  especially  to 
the  twelve  dozen  of  sects  and  sectlets  in  the  Amer- 
ican Protestant  world  as  a  natural  and  necessary 
conclusion  of  a  rupture  between  the  state  and  the 
Church.  The  German  Christians  are  advocates  of 
a  union  with  the  state,  and  the  voices  that  have 


ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT.  25 

been  heard  in  favor  of  a  separation  have  been  few 
and  far  between.  Movements  of  this  kind  have 
resulted  in  the  establishment  of  several  religious 
bodies,  of  which  the  Breslau  and  the  Immanuel 
Lutheran  Synods  are  the  largest,  while  the  Saxon 
and  the  Hanoverian  Synods  are  diminutive  or- 
ganizations. 

Unfortunately  the  experiences  of  the  German 
Churches  in  this  regard  have  not  been  such  as  to 
encourage  the  propaganda  of  a  independent 
''free  Church  in  a  free  state."  Movements. 
Those  Lutherans  who  have  withdrawn  from  the 
State  Churches  and  organized  independent  bodies 
have  not  been  able  to  agree  among  themselves, 
have  not  been  able  to  unite,  but  antagonize  each 
other  as  much  as  they  do  the  State  Churches.  The 
fact  that  in  the  historic  village  of  Hermanns!  >urg, 
the  famous  headquarters  of  the  Hermannsburg 
Mission  Society,  there  are  three  different  types  of 
independent  Lutheran  Churches  represented,  with 
no  fellowship  or  mutual  recognition,  has  not  been 
a  palatable  object  lesson  for  the  German  Churches 
in  general  to  desire  a  separation  of  Church  and 
state.  If  ever  such  a  step  is  taken,  factors  and 
forces  must  become  operative  in  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  Germany,  the  presence  of  which  can- 
not as  yet  be  detected.  The  historic  relations  be- 
tween the  two  are  evidently  destined  to  remain  in- 
definitely. 

But  in  one  important  respect  the  organization  of 
the  Protestant  Church  in  the  land  of  Luther  is 
different  from  that  in  other  Number  of  German 
Protestant  countries.  In  these  state  churches, 
latter  there  is  but  one  State  Church,  as  in  Eng- 
land the  Episcopal,  and  in  the  Scandinavian  coun- 
tries the  Lutheran,  but  in  Germany  there  are 
nearly  four  dozen  State  Churches.     The  German 


26        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN   GERMANY. 

Empire,  as  at  present  constituted  and  reor- 
ganized as  a  result  of  the  great  war  of  1870-71, 
is  a  confederation  of  twenty-six  states,  but  in 
these  there  are  no  less  than  forty-six  different  State 
Churches.  Each  state  has  not  only  its  own  Prot- 
estant State  Church,  but  some  states  have  several. 
This  singular  condition  of  affairs  can  be  understood 
only  in  the  light  of  history.  Germany's  political 
unification  has  been  more  rapid  than  its  ecclesias- 
tical consolidation.  In  fact,  as  far  as  the  latter  is 
ooncerned,  practically  not  even  a  beginning  has 
been  made.  As  a  result,  when  political  states  have 
been  united,  this  has  not  been  followed  by  a  union 
of  the  Church  organizations.  Thus  in  the  nine 
old  provinces  of  Prussia  the  United  Evangelical 
Church,  as  organized  in  1817,  on  the  three  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  inauguration  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, by  King  Frederick  William  III. ,  when 
he  organically  united  the  Lutheran  and  the  Re- 
formed Churches  of  his  kingdom,  is  the  official 
State  Church.  But  in  1866,  as  a  consequence  of 
the  war  with  Austria  and  the  South  German  states, 
Prussia  incorporated  the  former  kingdom  of  Han- 
over and  the  provinces  Schleswig-Holstein,  as 
also  Hessen,  in  all  of  which  the  Lutheran  and  not 
the  United  was  the  established  Church.  This  con- 
tinues so  to  the  present  day,  and  as  a  consequence 
Prussia,  while  being  only  one  political  body,  has 
no  fewer  than  four  State  Churches  to  report.  Ger- 
many is  united  only  in  political  and  in  military 
matters,  but  not  in  the  educational  or  in  ecclesi- 
astical departments.  Each  state  controls  its  own 
schools  and  its  own  Churches.  There  is  no  such 
an  organization  as  a  Protestant  Church  of  Ger- 
many ;  there  are  only  Protestant  State  Churches. 
The  Empire,  as  such,  has  no  jurisdiction  whatever 


ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT.  Li 

over    the    universities,    or    the    schools,    or    the 
churches. 

Efforts  to  effect  the  organization  of  one  power- 
ful Protestant  Church  for  the  whole  Empire  have 
been     repeatedly     made,     both  proposed 

since  the  present  Empire  was  confederation  of 
established,  especially  under 
the  leadership  of  the  so-called  Middle  or  Media- 
ting German  Church  party,  headed  by  the  lately 
deceased  Professor  Beyschlag,  of  the  University  of 
Halle,  who  published  a  special  journal  in  advo- 
cacy of  this  plan  ;  but  also  under  the  former  con- 
federation, "The  Holy  Roman  Empire  of  the  Ger- 
man Nation,"  which  existed  down  to  1805,  when 
it  was  crushed  under  the  heels  of  Napoleon.  But 
all  of  these  efforts  have  failed,  and  probably  will 
continue  to  fail  as  long  as  the  Protestantism  of 
Germany  is  not  internally  more  closely  united. 
Even  if  the  centrifugal  forces,  so  natural  and  so 
potent  especially  among  the  Germans,  and  partic- 
ularly so  in  the  world  of  religious  thought,  should 
be  overcome,  it  would  seemingly  be  impossible  to 
ever  remove  the  obstacles  caused  by  the  divergent 
interests  of  the  various  schools  and  tendencies  of 
thought  that  prevail  in  the  German  Churches.  At 
most  a  confederation  of  the  churches  could  be  es- 
tablished while  the  individual  State  Churches  re- 
tained their  individuality.  Such,  too,  was  the 
scheme  of  the  Beyschlag  propaganda,  which 
sought  the  establishment  of  an  Imperial  Synod, 
with  representatives  from  all  the  State  Churches, 
as  the  Parliament  represents  all  the  states. 

And  yet,  while  there  is  no  organic  union  between 
the  State  Churches  of  Germany,  and  their  connec- 
tion officially  with  each  other  is  no  more  intimate 
than    that    which  exists  between  the  great  Prot- 


28        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH"  IN    GERMANY. 

estant  denominations  in  American  Christendom, 
there  is  nevertheless  a  union  of  forces  and  a  co- 
semi-officiai  operation  that  have  made  the 
co-operation  of  Protestant  Church  in  that  land 
a  power.  While  the  Protestant 
Church  of  Germany  as  such  is  no  organization,  it 
certainly  has  a  real  existence.  Even  the  State 
Churches  recognize  each  other  unofficially,  while 
each  does  its  work  independently,  and  not  infre- 
quently one  will  do  what  another  refuses  to  do. 
In  the  Eisenach  Conference  the  representatives  of 
the  various  State  Churches,  in  their  biennial  con- 
ventions, consult  for  the  general  welfare  of  the 
Church,  and,  while  their  actions  and  measures 
have  no  legal  or  judicial  force,  their  moral  in- 
fluence is  even  greater  than  if  the  conference  were 
a  legal  body.  It  was  the  Eisenach  Conference 
that  inaugurated  and  successfully  carried  out  the 
revision  of  the  Luther  version  of  the  Bible,  com- 
pleted in  1883,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  authorities 
of  any  of  the  State  Churches,  even  those  of  Prus- 
sia, could  alone  have  accomplished  this  great 
work.  This  same  conference  has  in  recent  years 
supplied  the  Churches  of  Germany  with  a  new  set 
of  pericopes  or  Scripture  texts  for  the  entire 
Church  year,  one  set  from  the  Gospels,  another 
from  the  Epistles,  and  the  third  from  the  Old  Tes- 
tament ;  and  these  lessons  have  secured  a  recog- 
nition throughout  the  Churches  that  has  not  been 
accorded  to  those  selected  by  the  Church  theo- 
logians of  Wiirtemberg  or  Saxony,  or  by  such 
prominent  scholars  as  Thomasius  and  Nitzsch. 
Recently  again  the  Eisenach  Conference  has  se- 
cured the  co-operation  of  the  German  Churches 
and  scholars  in  the  establishment  of  an  arch- 
aeological school  in  Jerusalem,  after  the  model  of 
the  classical   schools    of   France,   Germany,    and 


ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT.  29 

America,  in  Athens,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  en- 
gage in  scientific  researches  in  Bible  lands. 

But  the  rank  and  the  file  of  the  German  Chris- 
tians have  even   to  a  greater  extent   ignored  the 

boundaries  Of  States  and  Of  State       United  Efforts  of 
Churches     in      the     Work      which     Churches  at  Large. 

they  do  for  the  Gospel  and  for  Christianity.  The 
state  supplies  the  Church  only  with  what  it  needs 
for  its  own  congregational  purposes.  It  builds 
the  Churches,  the  parsonages  and  school-houses. 
pays  the  pastor  and  the  teacher,  and  in  general 
sees  that  the  work  is  carried  on  in  the  various  con- 
gregations. But  beyond  this  the  state  does  noth- 
ing for  the  Church.  All  that  is  done  by  the  Chris- 
tians of  Germany  in  the  departments  of  missions. 
both  foreign  and  inner,  as  in  the  many  spheres  of 
charitable  and  evangelistic  work,  is  voluntary  on 
the  part  of  the  Church,  which  must  supply  money 
and  men  for  this  purpose.  In  organizing  for  these 
purposes  the  German  Christians  have  discarded 
political  and  tribal  boundaries.  There,  as  else- 
where in  Protestant  Church,  unity  of  theological 
beliefs  and  harmony  of  doctrinal  standpoints  have 
been  the  magnet  that  has  attracted  the  workers  to 
a  common  centre.  The  mission  societies,  for  in- 
stance, arc  all  organized  along  these  lines  and  en- 
tirely disregard  the  State  Church  boundaries.  The 
Leipzig  Mission  Society,  as  also  that  of  Hermanns- 
burg,  are  of  distinctly  Lutheran  origin,  but  their 
supporters  are  found  not  only  in  Saxony  and 
Hanover,  hut  wherever  the  conservative  and  con- 
fessional type  of  Lutheranism  finds  its  advocates. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Basel  Society,  which  is 
based  on  the  unionistic  principle  and  ignores  the 
differences  between  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
Churches,  finds  the  enthusiastic  support  of  all  the 
elements  that  incline  to  this  position,  especially 


30        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

in  South  Germany,  where  the  compromising  ten- 
dencies are  an  inheritance  from  the  clays  of  the 
Reformation.  Probably  the  most  national  of  all 
Church  organizations  is  the  Gustavus  Adolphus 
Society,  which  purposes  to  support  the  Protestant 
cause  in  Roman  Catholic  communities,  and  which 
has  found  its  friends  in  large  numbers  in  all  of 
the  State  Churches  of  Germany  and  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  Protestant  world  outside  of  the 
Fatherland.  In  these  ways,  and  in  many  others, 
German  Christians  have  united  to  work  for  the 
cause  of  the  Gospel,  notwithstanding  the  territorial 
separation  and  the  legal  status  of  the  State 
Churches.  In  countless  ways  and  manners  the 
divided  Churches  of  Germany  demonstrate  that 
they  are  one  body,  and  the  consciousness  of  this 
solidarity  is  a  powerful  factor  not  only  in  the 
work  of  the  Church,  but  also  in  its  theology  and 
its  literature.  While  not  an  organized  body,  the 
Protestant  Church  of  Germany  is  nevertheless  an 
actual  fact. 

The  government  of  the  Church  is  conditional  by 

their  organization.    It  constitutes  one  of  the  depart- 

Government  of      ments  of  the  administration  of 

state  churches.  the  state,  being  conducted  by  a 
minister  and  subordinates,  as  are  the  departments 
of  railroads,  military  and  naval  affairs,  agriculture, 
and  the  like.  The  ruler  of  the  state  is  officially 
the  head  of  the  Church  by  virtue  of  his  political 
office.  The  King  of  Prussia  is  the  ' '  Summits  Epis- 
copus"  or  the  Highest  Bishop  of  the  Protestant 
Church  of  Prussia,  and  actually  the  last  court  of 
appeal  in  the  management  of  Church  affairs,  as 
he  has  the  final  control  of  the  administration  in  all 
the  departments  of  government.  This  circum- 
stance brings  with  it  such  strange  anomalies,  as 
the   legal   status  prevailing  in  Saxony,   where  a 


ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT.  31 

Catholic  king  is  the  official  head  of  Protestant 
Church  government,  as  is  the  case  also  in  Ba- 
varia, and  probably  will  be  the  case  in  Wiirtem- 
berg  when  the  present  king  dies.  This  fact  of  the 
personal  headship  of  the  Church  by  the  political 
head  of  the  state  has  not  that  importance  for  the 
Protestant  Church  which  it  had  during  those  times 
when  the  autocratic  system  of  government  pre- 
vailed, and  the  rulers  actually  ruled.  Since  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  however,  the 
parliamentary  system  has  been  established  through- 
out Germany,  and  as  a  consequence  many  meas- 
ures that  would  formerly  have  fallen  to  the  prov- 
ince of  the  prince  are  now  determined  by  the  Par- 
liament. In  not  a  few  cases  this  has  been  any- 
thing but  an  improvement,  as  we  now  find  that 
the  members  of  the  Parliament,  be  they  Prot- 
estants or  Catholics,  Jews  or  Social  Democrats, 
pass  upon  measures  that  seriously  affect  the  weal 
and  the  woe  of  the  Church,  such  as  the  appropria- 
tion of  moneys,  and  the  like. 

In  the  execution  of  his  prerogative  as  the  official 
head  of  the  Protestant  State  Church,  the  ruler  sel- 
dom jDersonallv  interferes  or  State  control  of 
makes  his  influence  felt.  The  Church  Affairs- 
management  of  Church  affairs  is  assigned  to  the 
Ministerof  Cultus,  who  has  in  charge  also  the  schools 
of  the  country,  high  and  low.  The  union  of  the  ec- 
clesiastical and  the  educational  departments  under 
one  head  is  in  harmony  with  the  current  convic- 
tions in  German  circles,  where  it  is  regarded  as 
self-evident  that  religious  instruction  dare  not  be 
lacking  in  the  schools,  and  that  Church  and  school 
naturally  go  together.  The  advocates  of  a  purely 
secular  education,  entirely  divorced  of  religious  in- 
fluences, are  few  and  farbetweenin  Germany,  and 
such  education  is  contrary  to  the  traditions  and 


39 


THE    TKOTESTAXT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 


the  principles  of  the  Church  and  the  state.  Ac- 
cordingly in  all  public  schools  provisions  are  made 
for  the  religious  training  of  the  children  in  the 
Bible,  the  Catechism,  and  Biblical  history,  and  in 
the  gymnasium,  or  college  course,  instructions  in 
religious  branches  are  regarded  as  of  equal  im- 
portance with  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  the 
Latin. 

But   quite  naturally  the  Cultus  Minister  him- 
self cannot  personally  take  charge  of  the  executive 
r™,»™™^        work    in    the    management    of 

Government  ,  o 

through  Church  anairs.     At  his  side  and 

Consistories,   etc.      regpongible  to  him   are    the    con_ 

sislories  and  other  bodies,  composed  of  pastors  and 
laymen,  who  control  the  Church  affairs  of  the 
various  provinces  and  districts  in  accordance  with 
the  directions  of  their  superiors  and  the  laws  of 
the  country,  while  subordinate  officials,  such  as 
superintendents  and  others,  have  the  official  over- 
sight and  direction  of  smaller  territories.  These 
officials  are  all  appointed  by  the  ruler  of  the  coun- 
try or  his  Cultus  Minister,  and  are  generally 
selected  with  a  view  to  the  wishes  of  the  people. 
For  this  reason  the  Catholic  King  of  Saxony  selects 
pronounced  Lutherans  for  the  members  of  the 
Saxon  Superior  Church  Council,  sitting  in  the  cap- 
ital city,  Dresden,  and  the  Prussian  King  selects 
men  for  the  various  sections  of  the  Church  adapted 
to  the  status  and  spirit  of  the  Churches  there. 

It  is  but  rarely  that  the  political  head  of  a  state 
acts  counter  to  the  direct  wishes  of  the  Churches 
affected.  The  most  noted  case  of  this  kind  in 
recent  years  was  the  appointment  by  William  II. 
of  the  brilliant  but  somewhat  radical  Professor 
Harnack  to  a  professorship  in  the  University  of 
Berlin  against  the  outspoken  wishes  even  of  the 
Higher  Consistory  of  Prussia.      In  fact,  it  is  per- 


ORGANIZATION    AND    GOVERNMENT.  33 

haps  just  in  this  field  where  the  Church  feels  the 
hand  of  the  state  as  the  heaviest.  The  university 
professors  arc  appointed  by  the  state,  and  are  re- 
garded as  state  officials,  although  they  arc  to  train 
the  future  pastors  and  preachers  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  itself  has  no  voice  or  vote  in  the  ap- 
pointment of  these  men,  in  whose  character  and 
work   they   must    naturally   be    T.    r.      ..   T  „ 

•         .  The  Church  s  Loss 

most  keenly  interested.      It  has  by  this 

frequently  happened  that  on  ac-  Arrangement, 
count  of  the  scholastic  attainments  of  a  man,  the 
government  has  kept  him  in  a  theological  chair, 
although  he  was  entirely  obnoxious  to  the  constit- 
uency for  whom  he  was  to  prepare  ministers  of 
the  Gospel.  The  Church  officials  and  conventions 
may  protest  against  such  a  man  and  his  teaching-. 
but  it  is  a  matter  for  the  government  alone  to  de- 
cide if  this  protest  is  to  be  heeded.  The  moral 
influence  of  the  Church  has  frequently  proved  ef- 
fective in  such  cases,  but  the  legal  right  belongs 
to  the  state  alone. 

There  are  indeed  national,  district  and  pro- 
vincial, and  also  local  synods  held  at  regular  in- 
tervals,   and    SOme  Of   these    COn-      Synods,  etc.,  -and 

ventions,  such  as  the  great  their  Rights- 
National  Synod  for  the  Kingdom  of  Prussia,  have 
great  influence  in  government  circles;  yet  the 
rights  of  these  ecclesiastical  assemblies  are  more 
imaginary  than  real,  and  all  their  conclusions  and 
decisions  are  subject  to  revision  or  rejection  by  the 
state  authorities,  their  real  spheres  of  influence 
being  tin'  actual  Church  and  Gospel  work  within 
the  limits  prescribed  by  the  organization  of  the 
Church  and  its  relation  to  the  state.  Congrega- 
tional independence  practically  does  not  exist. 
Even  in  those  cases  where  the  selection  of  a  pastor 
from  among  a  number  of  candidates  is  left  to  a 
8 


o4        THE   PROTESTANT    CHURCH   IN   GERMANY, 

vote  of  the  members,  this  action  is  again  subject  to 
the  government  acceptance  or  rejection.  Bureau- 
cratic methods  prevail  in  Church  affairs  as  in  all 
others. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    CONFESSIONAL    STATUS. 

The  confessional  position  of  the  various  State 
Churches  is  legally  established,  as  the  outcome 
of  the  historical  development  of  official  confessional 
the  different  countries.     01  the  standing  of 

forty-six  State  Churches,  twenty-  State  Churches- 
four  are  Lutheran,  eleven  Reformed,  seven  United, 
and  four  Confederated.  Although  the  Lutheran 
lias  the  greatest  number  of  State  Churches  to  re- 
port, it  does  not  numerically  embrace  the  largest 
percentage  of  German  Protestants.  It  is  a  tradi- 
tional mistake  made  by  many  to  claim  for  the 
Lutheran  Church  all  or  the  great  bulk  of  the  Prot- 
estants of  the  Fatherland.  Of  the  fifty-six  million 
inhabitants  within  the  boundaries  of  the  German 
Empire,  about  two-thirds  are  Protestants,  and,  of 
these,  over  twenty  million  are  in  Prussia.  In 
Prussia,  however,  the  United  Church,  in  which  the 
Lutheran  and  the  Reformed  Churches  have  been 
absorbed,  prevails  in  the  nine  old  provinces,  while 
in  the  three  new  ones  acquired  in  1866  the  Luth- 
eran is  the  State  Church.  The  Lutherans  could 
accordingly  not  lay  claim  to  the  bulk  of  the  Prot- 
estants in  Prussia,  nor  to  the  house  of  Hohenzol- 
lern,  which  before  the  establishment  of  the  United 
Church  had  become  Reformed.  In  the  last  census 
of  Prussia  only  about  three  million  of  the  inhabi- 
tants claimed  to  belong  to  the  Lutheran  Church 
and  less  than  three  hundred  thousand  to  the  Re- 
(35) 


ob        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

formed,  leaving  over  seventeen  million  for  the 
United  Church.  Of  the  other  United  Churches 
that  of  Baden  is  the  most  important,  with  a  Prot- 
estant contingent  of  seven  hundred  thousand.  The 
leading  Lutheran  State  Churches  are  found  chiefly 
in  North  Germany,  and  in  addition  to  the  Prussian 
provinces  of  Hanover  and  Schles wig-Hoist ein,  in- 
cludes the  two  Mecklenburgs,  Oldenburg,  Saxony, 
and  Wiirtemberg,  while  in  Catholic  Bavaria  the 
Lutheran  is  also  the  established  Protestant  Church. 

Looking  at  the  matter  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  official  reports,  it  is  probably  fair  to  claim  for 

„,.     T    ..  confessional  Lutheranism  about 

The  Lutheran 

Element  in  the        one-third  ot    the  Protestants  01 

State  Churches.  Germany         And    yet    thege    (|ata 

do  not  do  justice  to  the  Churches,  for  it  is  a  fact  rec- 
ognized on  all  hands  that  a  very  large  percentage 
of  the  Protestants  who  are  enrolled  in  the  United 
Church  are  really  Lutheran,  as  is  evidenced  by 
their  public  services,  their  hymn  books,  their  ser- 
mons, the  use  of  Luther's  Cathechism,  etc.  In  fact, 
in  the  State  Church  of  Prussia  there  is  a  large  sec- 
tion known  as  the  adherents  of  "the  Positive 
Union,"  embracing  tens  of  thousands  who  claim 
Lutheranism  as  their  confessional  status,  but 
maintain  that  their  position  can  be  retained  even 
though  they  are  in  official  connection  with  the 
United  Church.  This  view  is  held  even  by  many 
prominent  theological  leaders,  as  was  seen  by  the 
acceptance  of  a  call  to  the  University  of  Berlin  by 
the  Lutheran  Professor  Seeberg,  of  Erlangen.  Then 
it  is  a  matter  of  note  that  the  dominant  power  in 
the  development  of  the  theology  and  the  Church 
life  of  Germany  comes  from  the  Lutheran,  and  not 
from  the  Reformed  Church.  In  fact,  the  latter  as 
a  separate  factor  and  force  has  almost  been  elimi- 
nated   from    German    Christianity,    although    the 


THE   CONFESSIONAL   STATUS.  6t 

spirit  of  this  Church  is  still  supreme  in  a  few  lim- 
ited localities,  and  recently  some  special  efforts 
have  been  made  to  reorganize  its  forces  and  make 
its  influence  felt.  If  the  standing  of  a  Church  is 
to  be  estimated,  not  by  its  numerical  strength  or 
its  official  membership,  then  the  Lutheran  Church 
can  be  said  to  be  almost  as  wide  as  the  whole 
Protestant  Churcri  of  the  Fatherland.  Not  from 
Geneva  or  Zurich,  but  from  Wittenberg  have  ema- 
nated the  factors  that  have  controlled,  and  still 
control,  on  the  whole,  the  character,  development, 
and  destiny  of  the  German  Protestant  Church. 

These  figures,  however,  represent  not  the  active 
Protestant  Church  membership,  but  the  Protestant 
population.  In  Germany  every- 
body is  bom  into  some  Church,  popu°atfonnand 
and  the  number  of  those  who  ^mbeVs^p. 
claim  to  be  adherents  of  neither 
the  Protestant,  nor  the  Catholic,  nor  the  Jewish 
faith,  constitute  a  mere  handful.  Even  on  the 
estranged  masses  of  the  great  cities  the  rites  and 
customs  of  the  Christian  Church  still  have  a  re- 
markable hold.  Although,  for  many  years,  there 
has  been  no  legal  compulsion  to  have  children  bap- 
tized or  confirmed,  or  marriage  performed  by  the 
Church,  or  the  funeral  conducted  by  the  clergy, 
the  great  mass  of  the  German  Protestants,  whether 
active  in  their  Church  relations  or  not,  still  cling- 
to  the  good  old  custom  in  this  regard.  In  sonic 
of  the  provinces  of  the  country  nearly  ninety-eight 
per  cent,  of  all  the  children  horn  to  Protestant  par- 
ents are  baptized,  and  from  that  number  the  per- 
centage decreases  to  about  seventy-live.  In  the 
nine  old  Prussian  provinces,  from  which  the  most 
reliable  statistics  are  available,  only  4.10  per  cent, 
of  these  children  were  not  baptized,  and  in  other 
parts   of   the  Empire  the  number  of  unbaptized 


38        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

children  is,  as  a  rule,  even  less.  In  fact,  the  per- 
centage of  such  children  in  the  Protestant  Church 
of  America,  taking  into  consideration  only  those 
denominations  who  practice  infant  baptism,  is 
much  larger  than  is  the  case  in  Germany.  In 
regard  to  burials  conducted  by  representatives  of 
the  Christian  Church,  the  figures  are  not  quite  as 
high.  They  range  from  seventy-two  per  cent,  in 
some  of  the  Prussian  provinces  to  nearly  ninety 
per  cent,  in  the  Lutheran  Church  of  Hanover. 
Satisfactory  comparative  statistics  as  to  confirma- 
tion can  scarcely  be  given,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  dis- 
pute among  the  Germans  themselves  whether  the 
relative  number  of  the  confirmed  has  been  decreas- 
ing or  not.  If  it  has,  the  decrease  is  confined  to 
the  larger  cities,  which  have  grown  in  Germany  in 
the  last  twenty-five  years  at  even  a  more  rapid 
fate  than  the  American  cities,  and  which  increase 
the  Church  authorities  have  not  been  able  to 
handle  as  they  have  desired. 

Just  what  percentage  of  the  nominal  Protestants 

are     actual     church    goers    and     active     church 

e        members  can  doubtless  be  best 

Percentage   of  .  - 

Active  church        ascertained    by    examining   the 
Members.  reports  of    attendance   at  com- 

munion. In  this  regard  statistics  are  very  com- 
plete and  instructive.  In  the  year  1896  the  num- 
ber who  communed  in  the  Protestant  Churches  of 
Prussia  were  8,334,341  ;  in  1897  it  was  8,407,330  ; 
during  these  two  years  the  reports  for  Bavaria  were 
1,071,812  and  1,0G4,3G3  ;  for  Saxony,  1,599,701 
and  1,625,929;  for  Wiirtemberg,  718,589  and 
734,874.  In  every  case,  except  in  Bavaria,  there 
was  an  increase,  and  that,  too,  above  the  normal 
increase  of  the  population,  showing  that  the  Church 
is  not  only  gaining  relatively,  but  also  absolutely. 
The  lessons  of  these  figures,  however,  can  be  learned 


THE    CONFESSIONAL    STATUS.  39 

only  when  it  is  seen  what  part  of  these  com- 
municant members  constitute  in  the  whole  Church 
membership.  In  1897,  in  the  State  Church  of 
Prussia,  the  communicants  constituted  89.60  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  Protestant  contingent,  while  in 
the  preceding  year  it  had  been  39.26  per  cent.  It 
varies  somewhat  in  the  different  provinces,  being 
the  highest  in  the  Lutheran  and  conservative  dis- 
tricts, and  the  smallest  in  those  provinces  where 
the  great  cities  are  found. 

In  nearly  all  of  the  twelve  provinces,  however, 
there  is  a  slow,  but  seemingly  steady,  increase  each 
y«ar  in  the  number  to  take  com-  Number  of 

munion.  In  the  other  German  communicants, 
states  the  percentage  of  actual  communicant  mem- 
bers is  even  greater,  and,  in  some  cases,  much 
greater  than  in  Prussia.  In  Bavaria  proper  it  is 
67. 14  per  cent. ;  in  the  Palatinate  57.07;  in  Sax- 
ony. 45.02;  in  Wurtemberg,  52.01;  in  Baden, 
54.02;  in  Hessen,  55.84;  in  Mecklenburg-Schwerm, 
34.40;  in  Sachsen-Weimar,  40.34;  in  Mecklen- 
burg-Strelitz,  22.62;  in  Oldenburg,  22.16;  in 
Braunschweig,  27.25,  etc.  The  lowest  figures  are 
furnished  by  the  free  cities  of  Bremen  and  Ham- 
burg, the  former  with  13.11  per  cent,  and  the 
latter  with  9.06.  Another  interesting  feature  in 
this  connection  is  the  fact  that  of  these  communi- 
cants the  men  in  the  majority  of  eases  constitute 
nearly  the  half.  The  poorest  reports  in  this  respect 
come  from  Prussia,  where  the  6,174,796,  who,  in 
1897,  communed  in  the  United  Church  of  the  nine 
old  provinces,  2,740,233  were  men  and  3,434,563 
were  women.  In  other  districts  the  ratio  is  even 
more  favorable  for  men.  The  highest  per  cent,  of 
men  communicants  is  found  in  Hanover,  where  it 
was  46.79.  These  figures  are  proof  conclusive  that 
Christianity  has  not  lost  its  hold  on  the  men  of  ( rer- 


40        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

many.    Danger*  >us  <  lata  of  this  kind  come  only  from 
the  great  cities  of   Berlin,  Hamburg,  and  Frank- 
fort.    Indeed,  figures  like  these  demonstrate  the 
power  of    Protestant  Christianity  in  the  land   of 
Luther,  and  explain,  too,  why  oven   the  spread  of 
Social  Democracy  has  not  been  able  to  damage  the 
Church  seriously.     An  effort  to  induce  the  sepa- 
ration en  masse  of  the  adherents  of  this  political 
and  social  party  from  the  Churches,  which  were 
planned  and  begun  some  years  ago,  signally  failed. 
These  statistics  point  a  moral  and  tell  a  tale. 
According  to  the  report  of  a  recognized  statistician, 
Lessons  of  these      published  in    the   beginning  of 
statistics.  the  year  1901,  there  were  in  the 

United  States  in  1800  one  communicant  member 
to  every  14.50  inhabitants  ;  but  the  Church  has 
gained  materially  during  the  century,  and  in  1900 
it  was  one  communicant  to  every  4. 28  inhabitants  ; 
only  the  Protestant  population  being  taken  into 
consideration.  If  these  statistics  are  reliable,  and 
from  surface  indications  this  seems  to  be  the  case, 
and  seem  even  to  be  rather  partial  to  the  Church  ; 
then,  as  far  as  facts  and  figures  can  demonstrate, 
there  is  a  greater  percentage  of  the  inhabitants  <>t' 
Germany  in  active  connection  with  the  Church 
and  regular  communicants  than  is  the  case  in 
American  Christianity.  Just  what  justification 
then  there  is  for  some  of  the  American  Churches 
to  send  "  missionaries  "  to  Germany,  as  they  do  to 
India,  China,  and  other  "heathen  "  lands,  is  diffi- 
cult to  see.  It  would  seem  rather  that  Germany 
would  be  justified  in  establishing  such  a  proselyt- 
ing propaganda  among  the  American  Churches. 

Just  "to  what  extent  positive  evangelical  and 
Lutheran  principles  prevail  in  the  creed  and  the 
life  of  German  Christianity  can  be  judged  only 
by  the  external  evidences  furnished  by  the  work 


THE    CONFESSIONAL    STATUS.  41 

and  the  confession  of  the  members.  In  general  it 
can  be  fairly  claimed  that  German  Protestantism 
is  in  this  regard  much  better  than   ~,     b«<i«»,j™m 

The    Predominance 

its  reputation.     While  it  is  true  of 

thai  in  the  Lutheran  Churches,  osltlve  rinclP  es- 
especially  among  the  clergy,  too,  there  has  been  a 
greater  or  less  departure  from  the  positions  taken 
by  the  Church  of  the  Reformation,  and  still  more 
from  the  views  defended  by  the  great  dogmati- 
cians  in  the  reign  of  orthodoxy,  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  these  deviations  are  by  many  regarded 
as  Legitimate  and  necessary  historical  develop- 
ments from  Lutheran  premises  and  principles  ; 
and  that  there  exists  in  the  German  Church  at 
large  a  depth  of  Christian  convictions  and  positive 
evangelical  faith  that  must  convince  candid  ob- 
servers that  the  Gospel  is  a  power  of  the  first  mag- 
nitude in  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  Germans.  In 
some  respects  the  German  Christians  are  the 
superiors  of  the  Christians  of  all  other  countries, 
especially  in  th  intelligent  understanding  of  the 
great  facts,  history,  and  teachings  of  Christianity. 
This  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  educational  system 
of  the  country,  which  makes  religious  instruction 
a  necessary  element  and  a  most  important  factor 
in  the  training  of  the  young.  From  the  kinder- 
garten, through  the  public  schools,  the  high 
schools,  the  colleges,  and  up  to  the  very  door  of 
the  university,  instruction  in  Biblical  history.  Cat- 
echism, Church  history,  etc..  is  one  of  the  leading 
parts  of  the  curriculum.  The  German  Christians 
are  not  content,  as  in  most  cases  the  American 
are.  to  depend  for  the  religious  training  of  the 
children  on  the  instructions  of  one  hour  weekly 
only  in  the  Sunday  school,  and  then  often  by  in- 
competent and  superficial  teachers.  Through 
their  school  training  the  Germans  are   thoroughly 


42        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

informed  on  all  matters  pertaining  to  Christian 
faith,  and  have  a  most  intelligent  knowledge  of 
what  they  as  Christians  are  expected  to  know  and 
to  do. 

But  the  Protestantism  of  Germany  has  come 
into    disrepute   on   account   of   the  radicalism  of 

„  .  .    ,  _.     ,  some  of  its  critical  theologians. 

Critical  Theology  .  ,       .    ,     °-      . 

versus  There   can  be  no  denial  01  the 

Church  Theology.      ^  ^  Germany  hag  been    the 

breeding  place  of  most  of  the  newer  and  destructive 
ideas  on  the  Scriptures,  and  that  "Higher  Criti- 
cism" in  its  radical  phases  has  become  a  power  in 
the  Protestant  countries  chiefly  through  the  teach- 
ings of  German  professors.  But  a  hasty  generali- 
zation from  these  facts  would  be  an  injustice  to  the 
sturdy  and  positive  convictions  of  the  German 
Protestant  world  at  large.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  those  professors  who  advocate  such  heretical 
views  represent  only  a  portion  of  the  teaching  force 
in  the  universities  of  that  ' '  land  of  thinkers  and 
authors."  Where  there  is  one  university  man 
teaching  rationalism  there  may  be  half  a  dozen 
teaching  positive  Christianity.  True,  nearly  all 
German  theology  has  been  more  or  less  affected  by 
modern  neological  thought,  and  even  the  Lutheran 
theology  of  that  country  is  not  a  reproduction  of 
the  historical  theology  of  the  Church  as  expressed 
in  the  works  of  her  great  theologians  or  even  of 
the  confessions  ;  yet,  over  against  the  destructive 
views  of  the  critics,  dozens  and  scores  of  German 
professors  teach  a  pronounced  type  of  evangelical 
and  Biblical  theology.  They  have  not  sacrificed 
the  cardinal  and  essential  principles  of  the  truth, 
however  little  they  may  be  regarded  throughout 
as  exponents  of  historically  correct  Lutheranism. 

Another  important  element  that  must  not  be 
overlooked  in  making  up  the  estimate  of  the  con- 


THE    CONFESSIONAL    STATUS.  43 

fessional  status  of  the"German  Protestant  Churches 
is  the  fact  that  the  radical  type  of  theology  taught 

by    SOme    Of    the    University  pro-     Positive  Principles 

fessors  does  not  represent  the  victorious, 
theological  position  of  the  Church  at  large,  but 
rather  stands  in  bold  and  outspoken  contrast  to  it. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  the  existence  of  a  "deep 
chasm,"  as  the  sainted  Delitzsch  termed  it,  be- 
tween the  university  theology  of  the  radicals  and 
that  of  the  Church  at  large.  Recent  facts  have 
demonstrated  this  abundantly.  When  sonic  years 
ago  a  movement  was  inaugurated  to  have  the 
Apostles"  Creed  struck  from  the  liturgical  service 
of  the  Church  and  from  the  oath  administered  to 
the  candidate  for  ordination,  on  the  ground  that 
some  of  the  statements  of  this  creed  no  longer  are 
in  harmony  with  the  latest  results  of  critical  the- 
ology, the  German  Church  arose  in  its  power  and. 
with  a  protest  that  was  heard  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other,  crushed  the  agitation  and  re- 
asserted its  faith  in  the  Sonship  of  Christ  and  His 
birth  from  a  virgin  mother.  Again,  the  political 
authorities  have  been  repeatedly  compelled  to 
yield  to  the  demands  of  the  rank  and  the  file  of 
the  Church,  both  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  pew, 
and  have  appointed  professors  of  positive  evangel- 
ical views  to  those  theological  faculties  where  the 
radical  type  of  theology  had  gained  the  supre- 
macy. This  has  happened  twice  in  Bonn,  once  in 
Tubingen,  once  in  Marburg,  and  elsewhere.  The 
critical  views  of  the  theological  professors  do  not 
find  permanent  lodgment  as  a  rule  in  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  the  ministers,  who  find  that  when 
they  are  actually  to  take  charge  of  souls  that  only 
positive  and  old-fashioned  doctrines  will  do  any 
good.  The  Christians  of  Germany  by  their  actions 
are  constantlv  demonstrating  the  fact  that  they  are 


44         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

positive  in  their  creed.  The  Churches  of  the 
preachers  of  the  evangelical  faith  are  filled  with 
auditors,  while  those  of  the  "  advanced  "  men  are 
empty.  The  people  flock  there  where  they  will 
receive  substantial  spiritual  food. 

The  practical  disruption  of  the  old  Protestanten 
Verein,  a  national  union  of  more  and  most  "  lib- 
Radical  Theology     eml "    winded    professors,    pas- 
Barren  of  tors,     and     laymen,     which     a 

Good  Works.  ,  p 

quarter  01  a  century  ago  was  a 
power  in  the  Church  of  Germany,  is  an  eloquent 
indication  of  the  trend  and  tendency  in  the  Church 
at  large.  It  is  certain  that  there  are  many  thou- 
sands estranged  from  the  Church,  especially  in  the 
large  cities  and  under  the  influence  of  the  Social 
Democrats  ;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  the  churchless 
masses  in  Germany  are  numerically  stronger  than 
they  are  in  some  other  Protestant  countries,  such 
as  England  and  America.  The  condition  of  affairs 
in  this  respect  is  better  in  the  Scandinavian  lands 
and  in  Finland.  Germany  is  at  a  disadvantage  in 
this  regard  because  this  class  of  people  are  in  that 
country  more  demonstrative  than  elsewhere.  But 
aside  from  this  unruly  element,  German  Protestant- 
ism is  positive  to  the  core.  Luther's  translation  of 
the  Bible,  his  Catechism,  the  magnificent  hymns 
that  constitute  such  a  grand  treasury  of  the 
Church,  its  ascetic  literature,  such  as  Arndt's  True 
Christianity  and  other  noble  inheritances  from  the 
days  of  faith  and  struggle,  have  a  hold  on  the  Ger- 
man heart,  and  are  such  powerful  agents  in  its  ed- 
ucation that  the  fleeting  notions  of  a  passing  phase 
of  antichristian  philosophy  or  theology  cannot  up- 
root an  oak  that  the  Spirit  of  God  planted  nearly 
four  centuries  ago,  and  has  been  faithfully  protect- 
ing all  these  years. 

And  the  German  Christians  have  especially  in 


THE    CONFESSIONAL    STATUS.  45 

the  Last  few  decades  amply  proved  their  faith  by 
their  works.  Liberalism  and  rationalism  in  the- 
ological though!   always  results  in  barrenness  oi 

good  works,  as  is  demonstrated  clearly  by  the 
Unitarians  and  Universalists  of  America,  and  this 

lesson  is  only  made  all  the  clearer  and  impressive 
by  the  annals  of  the  Church  history  of  all  ages 
and  times.  In  Germany  Christian  enterprise  and 
work  in  the  line  of  foreign  missions,  inner  mis- 
sions, in  charitable  and  philanthropic  schemes  have 
expanded  wonderfully,  and  in  all  eases  among  the 
conservative  and  positive  elements  in  the  Churches, 
the  details  of  which  will  be  given  in  another  part 
of  this  little  book. 

In  addition  to  the  Lutheran  and  the  Reformed 
Confessions,  and  what  lias  historically  been  de- 
veloped   from     these,     justly     or      other  Protestant 

unjustly,    seven  other    elements  churches. 

of  Protestantism  are  also  represented.  Most  prom- 
inent is  that  noble  Missionary  Church,  the  Mora- 
vian Brethren,  of  Gnadenf eld  and  Herrenhut,  as  re- 
vived by  Zinzendorf  ;  yet.  as  recent  developments 
have  again  demonstrate!  1.  these  Christians  have 
been  influenced  more  by  the  general  current  of  the- 
ological and  religious  life  and  thought  in  Germany 
than  they  have  influenced  others.  In  recent  de- 
cades several  American  denominations  haveevinced 
great  zeal  in  their  propaganda  in  Germany,  espe- 
cially the  Methodists  and  the  Baptists  and  the 
United  Brethren  ;  but  their  success,  while  numer- 
ically at  least  noticeable,  has  n«»t  gone  any  deeper, 
and  they  have  practically  remained  exotic  in- 
fluences, between  which  and  the  historic  Churches 
of  German  Protestantism  there  can  never  be  any 
closer  relationship  or  co-operation.  As  officially 
reported  by  the  statistics  of  the  Prussian  govern- 
ments, the  Protestants,  other  than  the  adherents 


46        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

of  the  Lutheran,  or  the  Reformed,  or  the  United 
Churches,  are  distributed  as  follows  :  Moravian 
Brethren,  4300  ;  Mennonites,  13,951  ;  Baptists, 
31,877  ;  Episcopalians,  2496  ;  Methodists  and 
Quakers,  4217  ;  Apostolic  Church,  or  Irvingians, 
22,610,  or  a  total  of  79,451  dissenters  in  the  old 
Provinces  of  Prussia.  The  total  of  ' '  other  Chris- 
tians" for  the  whole  Empire  was,  according 
to  latest  reports,  145,540  :  namely,  95,349  in 
Prussia;  5786  in  Bavaria;  11,519  in  Saxony; 
6723  in  Wurtemberg ;  3954  in  Baden ;  7390  in 
Hessen  ;  3579  in  Alsace-Lorraine. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   THEOLOGY   OF   GERMAN    PROTESTANTISM. 

In  the  world  of  religious  thought  and  in  learned 
theological  research  the  German  is  a  most  potent 
factor  and  force.     This  has  be-      The  influence  of 

C'Ome  SO  Only  in  the  plVScnt  gen-        German  Theology. 

eration.  In  these  departments  the  Germans  have 
become  the  teachers  of  the  world,  whose  methods 
and  manners  find  imitation  wherever  progressive 
theology  has  its  advocates.  In  former  times  it 
occasionally  happened  that  one  or  the  other  of  the 
theological  lights  of  the  Fatherland  found  a  con- 
stituency and  a  following  in  other  lands,  as  was  the 
case  with  Professor  Tholuck,  of  the  I Jniversity  of 
Halle  ;  but  these  were  exceptional  instances.  N<  >w 
German  theology  as  such  has  become  a  power  in 
the  scholarship  and  thought  of  the  whole  Protest- 
ant world.  The  Germans  were  among  the  first  to 
reap  the  benefit  of  the  cosmopolitanism  thai  char- 
acterizes the  learned  investigations  of  the  times. 
There  never  have  been  such  an  exchange  and 
interchange  of  technical  research  as  is  the  case  at 
present.  Science  and  learning  have  become  inter- 
national, and  the  republic  of  letters  is  more  of  a 
fact  now  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  learning. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  Germans  have 
been  accorded  the  leadership  in  the  scientific  theo- 
logical field  on  account  chiefly  of  the  principles  and 
methods  that  prevail  here.  This  primacy  is  ac- 
knowledged almost  on  all  hands,  as  is  best  seen  from 
(47) 


48         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

the  fact  that  the  brightest  minds  of  the  world  flock 
by  the  thousands  to  the  German  universities,  the 
headquarters  of  scientific  thought,  in  order  there  to 
The  German  learn  the  secrets  of  success  at  the 
universities.  fee^  C)f  acknowledged  savants  and 
scholars.  The  universities  of  Germany  are  a  power 
not  equaled  by  the  higher  institutions  of  learning 
in  other  countries.  Of  the  33,503  students  which 
were  inscribed  at  the  twenty-one  German  univer- 
sities in  1899,  no  fewer  than  2284  were  from  non- 
German  countries.  Among  these  foreigners  literally 
all  the  cultured  nations  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
and  America  are  represented,  and  a  list  of  univer- 
sity students  in  a  cosmopolitan  institution  like  that 
in  Berlin  reads  like  the  roll-call  of  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  These  2284  foreigners  were  distributed 
as  follows  :  584  from  Russia,  447  from  Austria  and 
Hungary,  269  from  Switzerland,  149  from  Eng- 
land, 69  from  Bulgaria,  50  from  Holland,  41  from 
France,  39  from  Servia,  37  from  Italy,  33  from 
Turkey,  32  from  Roumania,  31  from  Sweden  and 
Norway,  24  from  Luxemburg,  23  from  Greece,  19 
from  Belgium,  3  from  Denmark,  3  from  Monte- 
negro, and  3  from  Spain.  Of  the  non-European 
Sontingent  fully  300  were  from  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  101  were  from  Asia,  chiefly  Japan 
and  China  ;  21  from  Africa,  and  5  from  Australia. 
Berlin  alone  had  655  of  these  foreigners  ;  Leip- 
zig, 322  ;  Heidelberg,  205  ;  Munich,  196  ;  Halle. 
138  ;  Freiburg,  96,  this  number  decreasing  to  the 
lowest  figure,  namely  2,  at  the  Catholic  institution 
at  Minister.  The  total  teaching  force  of  these 
schools  was  2493,  namely  1066  full  professors,  84 
honorary .  professors,  582  assistant  professors,  and 
761  private  tutors. 

It  is  at  these  schools  that  the  ministry  of  the 
German  Protestant  Churches  is  educated,  and  no 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  GERMAN  PROTESTANTISM.     49 

applicant  can  expect  an  appointment  unless  he  lias 
taken  a  full  university  curriculum,  followed  by  two 
examinations  by  the  officials  of  Attendance  at 
the  State  Churches;  and  in  universities, 
many  eases  this  theoretical  training  is  supple- 
mented by  special  practical  courses  in  seminaries 
established  especially  for  this  purpose.  During 
the  year  1899  the  attendance  of  theological  stu- 
dents at  these  universities  were  :  Berlin,  -'524  ; 
Bonn,  101  ;  Breslau,  86  ;  Erlangen,  200 ;  Giessen, 
67;  Gottingen,  143;  Greifswalde,  215;  Heidel- 
berg, 60  :  Halle,  365  ;  Jena,  39  ;  Kiel,  45  :  Kon- 
igsberg,  76;  Leipzig,  301;  Marburg,  124;  Rostock, 
39;  Strassburg,  66  ;  Tubingen,  343.  Attheother 
universities  there  are  no  Protestant  theological 
faculties,  but  only  Catholic,  while  this  Church  is 
not  represented  in  the  list  given  here  except  at 
Breslau,  Bonn,  and  Tubingen,  where  both  Churches 
have  their  faculties.  There  are  thus  seventeen  Prot- 
estant theological  faculties  in  the  country,  but  only 
six  Catholic,  the  latter  Church,  as  a  rule,  preferring 
to  educate  the  young  priests  at  the  diocesan  semi- 
naries, conducted  under  the  management  of  the 
archbishops  and  the  bishops,  and  uot  at  the  uni- 
versities, where  the  professors  are  appointed  by  the 
state,  and  where  the  Catholic  students  come  into 
touch  and  contact  with  the  Protestant.  In  many 
Catholic  circles  there  is  a  pronounced  antagonism 
to  the  whole  idea  of  theological  education  in  con- 
nection with  state  universities,  and  the  programme 
is  favored  which  has  been  carried  out  in  Italy, 
namely,  to  separate  entirely  the  theological  fatali- 
ties from  the  universities. 

It  is  at  these  universities  that  the  theology  of 
Germany,  in  so  far  as  it  has  become  an  interna- 
tional factor  in  the  religious  thought  of  the  world, 
has  its  headquarters,  although  university  theology 
4 


50        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN   GERMANY. 

is  not  the  only  theology  which  Germany  has  pro- 
duced  and  does  produce,   nor  is   it  intrinsically 

The  Theology  at  always  the  best.  This  learned 
universities.  theology  is  controlled  by  the 
rules  of  scholarship  that  prevail  in  all  other  de- 
partments of  German  research,  and  reflect  both 
the  strong  and  the  weak  sides  of  the  woik  done  in 
this  line.  The  strong  side  doubtless  consists  in 
the  high  ideal  entertained  on  the  question  as  to 
what  constitutes  a  scholar.  Not  a  compilation  or 
a  reproduction  of  old  data  or  position,  but  only  a 
positive  addition  to  human  knowledge  or  thought, 
entitles  a  man  to  the  claim  of  scholarship  in  that 
country  that  loves  to  call  itself  ' '  The  land  of  au- 
thors and  thinkers."  A  scholar  is  expected  to 
deal  only  with  primary  sources  of  knowledge,  and 
not  with  secondary.  He  is  to  be  master  of  the 
best  authorities  in  his  branch  and  to  make  a  posi- 
tive addition  to  human  knowledge  and  evince  an 
independent  spirit  of  research  that  is  not  bound 
by  the  ' '  isms  ' '  of  schools  or  cliques. 

This  ideal  is  high,  and,  in  itself,  correct  and  com- 
mendable. But,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  here  too 
the  greatest  weakness  lies  side  by  side  with  the 
greatest  strength.  A  German  theologian  is  ex- 
pected to  produce  new  results,  and  the  temptation 
to  do  this  at  all  hazards  leads  to  a  sensationalism 
and  radicalism  that  sacrifice  soundness  and  con- 
servatism of  judgment  to  the  desire  for  novelty  and 
newness  of  theory  or  hypothesis.  It  is  largely  for 
this  reason  that  Germany  is  the  hot-bed  of  radical 
and  even  rationalistic  thought,  and  the  country  that 
has  seen  the  greatest  number  of  ' '  schools ' '  in  the 
theological  world  and  witnessed  the  greatest  variety 
of  ups  and  downs  in  learned  theology.  It  is  partly, 
too,  on  this  account  that  this  country  is  so  prolific 
in  theological  literature.     In  general,  Germany  is 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  GEBMAN  PEOTESTANTISM.      51 

the  greatest  book-producing  country  on  the  globe, 
publishing  each  year  as  many  works  as  England, 
United  States,  and  France  combined.  The  latesl 
annual  report  credited  Germany  with  an  output  of 
23,908  volumes  (while  that  of  the  United  States 
was  only  5315),  and  of  these  a  large  propor- 
tion were  new  editions.  And  the  department 
of  theology  is  well  represented  in  this  multitude 
of  volumes,  namely  2091,  which  is  more  than 
one-third  of  the  whole  literary  production  of 
America. 

In  view  of  these  ideals  and  these  literary  canons, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Germany  is  the  favored 

SOil    for    the    growth    Of    a    more         German    Radical 

or  less  pronounced  radical  the-  Theology. 

ology.  Other  factors  contribute  to  make  this 
radicalism  even  more  dangerous.  The  univer- 
sity men  are  not  appointed  by  the  Church  but 
by  the  state,  and  they  are,  consequently,  not 
answerable  to  the  Church  for  their  teachings. 
They  breathe  the  free  air  of  the  university  world 
and  see  their  highest  aim,  not  in  the  service  of  the 
Church,  but  in  the  service  of  science.  They  are 
above  everything  else  scholars,  with  the  tastes  and 
the  ambitions  of  scholars.  As  a  result,  it  n<  >t  unfre- 
quently  occurs  that  they  call  into  question  in  their 
researches  even  the  fundamentals  of  faith,  and  the 
very  foundations  of  the  Church  of  Jesus.  Their 
contentions  are,  as  a  rule,  not  on  this  or  that  par- 
ticular phase  of  Christian  doctrine,  but  the  debat- 
able ground  between  the  various  schools  of  thought 
are  often  such  vital  problems  as  the  certainty  and 
limitations  of  our  knowledge  of  divine  things,  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  the  character  of  the 
original  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  similar  prob- 
lems that  had  been  considered  as  practically  set- 
tled   1)V  the    Church  for  centuries.     The   higher 


52        THE    PROTESTANT   CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

criticism  of  the  day,  which  finds  its  most  pro- 
nounced protagonists  at  the  German  universities, 
really  involves  the  problem  of  the  character  of  the 
Scriptures,  whether  they  are  of  divine  or  of  human 
origin,  and  the  character  of  the  religious  develop- 
ment that  the  Old  and  also  the  New  Testaments  in- 
volve and  teach,  whether  this  is  a  purely  natural 
process  and  development  carried  on  by  factors  that 
are  operative  in  human  history  in  general,  or 
whether  they  are  divine  and  the  Bible  is  a  unique 
production,  as  are  also  its  contents.  This  critical 
school  really  aims  at  the  introduction  of  a"  religion 
of  the  era  of  Darwin,"  and  the  application  of  the 
natural  development  to  the  theology  and  the  Bib- 
lical interpretation  of  the  age. 

It  is  this  feature  of  German  theological  research 

that  has  made  such  rapid  progress  in  the  Prot- 

~,    TT         .  „  estant  lands  in  recent  years,  and 

The  Ups  and  Downs  Vi  • 

of  has  found  so  many  adherents  m 

Radical  Theology.      ^^      an(J      America       alsa 

If  this  critical  or  destructive  theology  were  the  only 
kind  that  Germany  produced,  that  country  would 
with  justice  deserve  the  reputation  of  being  the 
hot-bed  of  radical  theology,  and  there  would  be 
reasons  to  renew  the  warnings  of  Howard  Crosb}7 
against  the  dangers  of  '•  Teutolatry."  But  fortu- 
nately German  theology  has  something  better  to 
offer  than  what  is  now  declared  to  be  "  scientific ' ' 
theology,  but  is  only  one  phase  of  the  ever- 
changing  and  kaleidoscopic  production  of  liberal- 
izing theological  schools.  The  history  of  German 
religious  and  theological  thought  shows  what  esti- 
mate is  to  be  placed  on  this  present  form  of  criti- 
cism. 

It  seems  to  be  the  destiny  of  Germany  to 
produce  about  once  in  every  generation  a  new 
school  of  destructive  thought.    The  past  century  1  >e- 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  GERMAN   PROTESTANTISM. 

gan  with  the  vulgar  rationalism,  based  oh  the  phil- 
osophy of  Kant,  and  this  was  followed  by  the  reign 
of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  which  brought  forth 
the  Tubingen  school  of  New  Testament  critics  with 
Baur  at  its  head;  while  the  last  third  of  the  cen- 
tury has  been  under  the  supremacy  of  the  Darwin- 
istic  evolutionary  philosophy,  and  lias  found  its 
expression  in  the  Wellhausen  school  of  Old  Testa- 
ment higher  critics.  The  first  two  radical  schools 
have  long  since  passed  away,  having  no  adherents 
in  modern  Germany,  and  the  heydey  of  the  third 
school  is  manifestly  also  nearly  over  and  the  days 
of  its  disintegration  at  hand.  Judged  by  the 
lesson-  of  history  this  phase,  too,  of  destruc- 
tive German  critical  thought  has  seen  its  best 
days. 

In  all  of  these  cases,  however,  the  positive  and 
Biblical  theology  of  German  Protestantism  has 
profited    by    these    periods    of       The  Benefits  to 

dOUbt      and*    Criticism.        If      Ger-        Positive  Theology. 

man  theological  thought  is  responsible  for  most 
of  the  radical  tendencies  and  schools,  it  can  also 
claim  to  have  furnished  the  ablest  defense  of 
the  fundamentals  and  essentials  of  Christianity. 
The  finest  scholarship  in  the  world  has  been  called 
into  requisition  by  the  Germans  for  the  purpose 
of  strengthening  the  position  of  Christianity,  and 
to  a  large  extent  the  employment  of  this  scholar- 
ship for  purposes  of  defense  has  hen  the  result  of 
the  attacks  that  had  been  made  upon  the  Scrip- 
tures and  Scriptural  teachings.  It  is  now  about 
half  a  century  ago  since  Strauss  published  his 
famous,  or  rather  infamous.  Life  of  Christ,  in 
which  he  reduced  the  Gospel  records  of  Jesus  to 
myths  and  unfounded  stories.  As  a  result  Ger- 
man scholarship  went  to  work  and  examined  anew 
and  with  the  greatest  of  acumen  the  foundations 


54        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

upon  which  the  account  furnished  of  Christ  by 
the  Evangelists  rests,  and  the  result  has  been 
that  the  truth  of  the  Gospels  is  now  scientifically 
and  historically  entrenched  as  never  before,  and 
this  condition  of  affairs  is  largely  attributed  to  the 
revolutionary  attacks  made  by  Strauss  and  others. 
Again,  the  Tubingen  school  of  New  Testament 
critics  had  ventured  the  theory  that  the  Christian- 
ity of  the  post-apostolic  period  was  the  result  of  a 
compromise  between  antagonistic  tendencies  that 
prevailed  among  the  Apostles  themselves,  and 
that  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  only  four,  namely, 
Romans,  two  Corinthians,  and  Galatians,  were 
really  the  product  of  the  Apostle's  pen. 

This  claim  set  the  German  conservative  critics 
to  work  again  to  re-examine  the  original  source  of 
what  conservative  our  knowledge  of  the  New  Tes- 
Theoiogy  Has  Done,  tament  period  and  that  which 
followed,  with  the  result  that  in  such  works  as 
Zahn's  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  a 
massive  work  of  superlative  erudition,  the  old  views 
which  the  Church  had  entertained  concerning  the 
New  Testament  writings  have  been  shown  to  be 
correct.  Even  such  a  leader  of  critics  as  Professor 
Harnack  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  only  one 
single  New  Testament  book  is  not  genuine,  namely, 
Second  Peter,  although  he  does  not  accept  the 
fourth  Gospel  and  the  Pastoral  Epistles  in  the  com- 
mon way.  In  other  words,  if  German  destructive 
criticism  has  attacked  the  Scriptures  and  their 
teachings,  German  constructive  criticism  and  con- 
servative theological  thought  have  also  furnished 
the  best  scientific  and  historical  demonstration, 
that  on  the  whole  the  confidence  which  the  Church 
has  all  along  had  in  the  written  Word  has  not 
been  misplaced,  and  that  the  best  and  most  care- 
ful  scholarship  of  the  world  is  not  a  hurt  but  a 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  GERMAN   PROTESTANTISM.      00 

help  to  the  cause  of  the  Church.  The  vicissitudes 
of  German  theological  thought  in  this  field  have 
been  remarkable.  There  have  been  Bincethedays 
of  the  Reformation  many  schools  of  negative 
theology,  in  which  the  fundamental  teachings  of 
Evangelical  Protestantism  have  been  attacked, 
but  German  scholarship  has  always  in  the  end 
supplied  the  antidote  in  the  shape  of  a  renewed 
demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  Church's  teach- 
ings. It  is  true  that  that  element  or  grain  of  truth 
which  is  inherent  in  nearly  all  of  these  negative 
schools,  and  the  exaggeration  and  misapplication 
of  which  constitutes  their  stock  in  trade,  has  been 
duly  appreciated  and  appropriated  also  by  the 
conservative  theologians,  and  as  a  result  even  this 
school  of  thought  never  merely  reproduces  what 
other  generations  have  taught. 

Hence,  too,  the  Lutheranism  of  Germany  in 
the  present  day  is  not  the  exact  reproduction  of 
the  Lutheranism  of   the  Refor-       German  Modem 

Illation  era  and   Still    leSS  Of    that     Lutheran  Theology. 

prevailing  during  the  period  of  the  great  dogma- 
ticians.  It,  too,  has  shared  in  the  development 
that  the  theological  world  has  passed  through 
during  the  intervening  centuries,  although  it 
is  a  disputed  question  as  to  the  extent  to  which 
this  modified  type  of  Lutheranism  really  differs 
from  that  of  the  heroic  age,  whether  in  essentials 
or  only  in  incidentals  and  accidentals,  whether  in 
si  distance  or  only  in  form,  and  then,  too,  in  how 
far  modern  development  of  Lutheranism  is  better 
or  worse  than  that  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries. 

But  all  this  deals  only  with  one  part  and  portion 
of  the  theological  literature  and  thought  of  Ger- 
many, namely,  with  the  Bible  in  the  widest  sense 
of  the  term.    It  is  only  this  that  has  been  hrought 


56        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

to   the   attention   of   non-German    readers      But 

German  theological  literature  is  vastly  richer  and 

wealth  of  greater  than  the  knowledge  of 

German  Theology.        ft  which    is   Current    among    OUI- 

siders  would  lead  one  to  helieve.  In  every  de- 
partment of  theological  science,  and  in  every 
branch  and  discipline,  it  has  a  phenomenally  rich 
abundance  of  excellent  works.  The  theology  of 
no  other  Protestant  country  is  so  rich  in  really 
scholarly  productions  in  every  line  as  is  that  of 
Germany,  and  the  bulk  of  it  is  devoted  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  interests  of  a  positive  and  evangeli- 
cal type  of  Christianity.  Negative  or  neological 
works  are  not  popular  among  German  Christians, 
least  of  all  among  the  laity,  and  only  to  a  certain 
extent  among  the  clergy.  These  truths  are  illus- 
trated by  the  homiletical  literature  of  modern 
Germany.  No  other  country  publishes  such  an 
abundance  of  excellent  sermon  books  as  is  done 
by  the  land  of  Luther,  and  in  most  cases 
these  collections  are  marked  by  positive  faith. 
Although  there  are  so-called  "advanced"  circles 
in  the  Protestant  Church  of  that  country,  yet  a 
collection  of  rationalistic  sermons  is  a  rare  pro- 
duct of  the  book  market  of  the  most  prolific 
literary  country  on  the  globe.  Of  all  the  depart- 
ments of  literature,  probably  that  of  theology  is 
in  Germany  the  most  free  of  objectionable  ele- 
ments, although  these  excellent  qualities  are  seen 
not  in  the  defense  of  historic  Lutheranism  in  all 
of  its  phases  and  forms,  but  rather  in  the  interests 
of  the  general  principles  of  a  positive  Protestant 
faith.  Modern  theological  thought  and  literature 
in  Germany  is  to  a  great  extent  evangelical  and 
positive,  but  it  is  not  distinctively  Lutheran. 

It  is  perhaps  impossible  to  classify  the  different 
schools    of    theological  thought   that    prevail    in 


the  theology  of  German  protestantism.    •>< 

modern    Germany,   as   the   lines   of    demarcation 

between    them   are  not  always  clearly  drawn  and 

they  overlap  cadi  other.      The  schools  of 

historical  type  of  Lutheranism,  Theology, 

which  defends  the  letter  of  the  Confession  in  every 
point  and  particular,  finds  but  little  expression  in 
books,  the  defense  of  these  principles  being  con- 
fined almost  entirely  to  the  periodical  press.  Even 
in  the  theological  faculties  that  are  usually  cred- 
ited with  being  Lutheran,  especially  Rostock  and 
Erlangen,  but  also  Leipzig,  the  Lutheranism 
taught  is  that  of  a  modified  form.  These  theo- 
logical schools  well  recognize  the  fact  that  there  is 
an  impassable  chasm  between  Biblical  theological 
thought  and  the  current  philosophy  of  the  hour 
which  has  so  materially  influenced  other  classes 
of  theologians.  The  most  aggressive  school  in 
recent  years  has  been  the  radical  tendency  headed 
by  the  late  Professor  Ritschl,  of  the  University  of 
Gottingen,  which  is  really  not  a  dogmatical  school 
at  all.  l»ut  teaches  rather  a  form  of  ethics,  inde- 
pendent of  and  divorced  from  the  positive  doctri- 
nal hasis  of  Christianity.  It  is  generally,  and  no 
doubt  correctly,  charged  with  being  rationalistic 
in  its  tendencies,  although  it  claims  to  he  aiming 
at  a  revival  of  the  genuine  Lutheranism  of  the 
great  Reformer. 

This  and  other  schools  of  a  more  liberal  type 
arc  all,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  controlled  by 
philosophical  systems,  and  not         weakness  of 

by    ail      earnest    deVOtion    to    the     Advanced  Theology. 

Word.  The  Ritschl  school  is  really  only  an  ap- 
plication of  Kant's  philosophy  to  theology,  which 
same  system  is  by  Church  history  charged  with 
being  tin'  parent  of  the  old  "vulgar  rationalism" 
that  flourished  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.     Indeed  this  is  the  general  characteristic 


58         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

of  these  S}Tstems,  that  they  do  not  appeal  to  the 
written  Word  as  a  last  court  of  appeal,  and  that 
their  teachings  and  tenets  are  not  settled  by  the 
statement,  "It  is  written  ;  "  but  it  is  a  philoso- 
phy which  has  been  allowed  to  determine  what 
the  Scriptures  are  to  teach  and  what  not.  In  that 
way  the  New  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  at  bottom  only  an  application  of  the  Dar- 
winian theory  of  natural  development  of  the 
contents  of  the  Scriptures  ;  and  for  this  reason 
this  system,  as  also  all  other  negative  schools  with 
philosophical  basis,  can  really  lay  no  claim  to  be 
a  scientific  product.  Its  weakness  is  its  subjective 
character,  and  this  subjectiveness  is  the  rot  that 
has  infested  German  theology  outside  of  those 
writers  that  accept  the  Scriptures  as  they  are  and 
for  what  they  say.  Liberal  or  destructive  theol- 
ogy is  not  proved  to  be  permanently  dangerous 
because  it  is  subjective  and  unscientific.  Only 
Scriptural  theology  in  the  end  has  permanence, 
and  demonstrates  that  it  is  the  product  of  really 
scientific  methods  and  rules, 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE      PROTESTANT     VERSUS     THE      ROMAN     CATHOLIC 
CHURCH     IN    GERMANY. 

The  historical  and  actual  relations  that  exist 
between  the  Protestant  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  in  the  land  of  Luther    _    mo     «,.»,  ,.„  •„ 

Germany  the  Historic 

cannot  be  paralleled  anywhere  Battlefield  Against 
else  on  the  globe.  Germany  was 
the  centre  and  source  of  the  revolt  against  the 
spiritual  and  political  subjection  to  Rome,  and 
Germany  has  continued  to  be  the  chief  battlefield 
between  the  hosts  of  the  contending  communions 
ever  since.  This  country  looks  back  not  only 
upon  a  thirty  years'  war  of  the  sword  and  fire 
between  Protestants  and  Catholics,  but  also  upon 
a  battle  of  spirits,  of  intellect,  of  learning,  of 
polities,  covering  a  period  of  nearly  four  hundred 
years.  This,  too,  Catholic  writers  and  leaders 
clearly  understood,  and  Cardinal  "Wiseman,  of 
England,  has  prophesied  that  "the  great  apoca- 
lyptic contest "  between  truth  and  error  is  to  be 
fought  out  to  the  finish  "on  the  sands  of  Brand- 
enburg." In  no  other  country  of  the  globe  can 
a  fairer  test  be  made  of  the  relative  merits  and 
demerits,  of  the  comparative  activities  and  labors 
of  the  two  great  Churches,  than  is  done  in  ( Ger- 
many. In  the  Latin  countries  of  southern  Europe 
and  in  South  America  the  overwhelming  prepon- 
derance of  the  Roman  Catholic  elements  exclude 
the  possibility  of  a  test  and  trial  between  them, 
and  the  power  of  Protestantism  in  the  Scandi- 
(59) 


60        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

navian  lands  causes  practically  the  same  results. 
In  Germany  Roman  Catholicism  is  at  its  best,  in 
scholarship,  in  fruits,  in  learning,  and  in  public 
esteem,  and  here  it  can  contend  with  Protestantism 
on  practically  equal  terms  and  on  the  same  con- 
ditions for  the  mastery  of  those  factors  and  forces 
that  guide  the  destinies  of  nations  and  individuals, 
for  supremacy  in  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  life, 
in  literature,  science  and  art,  in  school  and  educa- 
tion, in  economics,  and  in  the  social  organizations. 

The  test  has  been  made,  and  this  contest  is  going 
on,  with  the  clear  result  that  intrinsically  and  in 
Protestant  victories   principle   Protestantism    is   the 

over  Romanism.  superior  of  Roman  Catholicism. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  days  of  the  Reformation  and 
the  counter-Reformation,  chiefly  through  the 
machinations  of  the  Jesuits,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  regained  much  territory,  especially  in 
Bavaria,  along  the  Rhine,  and  in  the  German 
provinces  of  Austria,  which  the  Reformation  has 
wrested  from  the  dominion  of  the  hierarchy ; 
but  these  successes  were  achieved  through  carnal 
means  and  by  physical  force,  and  not  by  moral 
suasion  or  inherent  spiritual  superiority.  Ever 
since  the  era  of  brute  force  in  the  religious  de- 
velopment of  Germany  has.  passed,  Protestantism 
has  not  only  held  its  own  against  Rome,  but  has 
gained  steadily  and  slowly,  not  only  or  chiefly 
numerically,  but  still  more  in  power  and  intrinsic 
superiority.  The  history  of  the  past  few  centuries 
and  of  the  past  decades  especially  has  shown  that 
Rome  is  strong  in  its  organization  and  in  the 
momentum  which  the  wonderful  compactness  of 
the  hierarchy,  declared  by  a  Protestant  writer  to 
be  ' '  the  most  wonderful  and  successful  organiza- 
tion the  world  has  ever  seen,"  has  given  to  its  un- 
dertakings.     But    Protestantism    is    superior    in 


PROTESTANT    VS.    CATHOLIC    CHURCH.  61 

spiritual  and  in  intellectual  strength,  and  the  re- 
sult for  the  " apocalyptic  battle"  is  not  doubtful 
for    the    believer    in    the    principles   of    positive 

Protestantism. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  victories  of  the 
Catholic  Church  of  the  Fatherland  in  the  political 
and    other     spheres,     some    of       in  the  world  of 
which    have   been    noteworthy,  scholarship. 

especially  in  the  Kulturkampf  and  in  the  virtual 
surrender  of  Bismarck,  in  the  world  of  scholar- 
ship and  research,  that  Church  lias  no  results  to 
exhibit  that  in  any  way  would  be  a  justification  of 
its  numerical  and  political  strength  in  the  empire. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  Biblical  research  in 
particular,  and  also  in  many  other  departments  of 
abstract  investigation,  theGermans  lend  the  world. 
The  presence  of  2500  foreign  students  at  the  uni- 
versities of  that  country  during  the  past  semester 
is  a  public  and  international  recognition  of  this 
pre-eminence.  As  the  Catholic  contingent  is  about 
one-third  and  more  of  the  population  of  the  land 
of  Luther,  that  Church  would  be  expected  to 
furnish  at  least  35  per  cent,  of  the  teaching 
force  at  these  institutions,  which  in  Germany 
are  the  headquarters  and  fountains  of  the  trends 
and  tendencies  controlling  scholarship  to  a  degree 
unknown  in  France.  England,  or  America. 

And  yet  recent  statistics  show  that  of  the  2178 
professors  and  teachers  who  constitute  the  non- 
theological  faculties  of  the  21  universities,  only 
277.  or  little  more  than  13  per  cent.,  are  adherents 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Of  the  32,331 
students  who  were  enrolled,  less  than  20  per  cent. 
belonged  to  this  Church,  while  the  Protestant  con- 
tingent was  considerably  above  the  percentage 
which  its  relative  position  in  the  total  of  the  popu- 
lation entitled  it  to  have.     The  ratio,  however,  in 


62        THE   PROTESTANT   CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

the  ranks  of  the  teaching  force  is  highly  signifi- 
cant. In  Germany  the  universities  are  state  insti- 
tutions, in  no  way  or  manner  officially  influenced 
by  church  interests,  except  in  reference  to  the 
theological  departments.  Admittance  to  member- 
ship in  a  university  faculty  is  secured  solely  and 
alone  through  scientific  competence  and  scholarly 
attainments.  The  most  precious  possession  of  the 
university,  cherished  as  its  greatest  historic  right, 
is  the  perfect  ' '  Lehrfreiheit ' '  of  its  teachers. 
Only  recently  the  faculty  in  Berlin  protested 
against  the  removal  of  the  Jewish  privat-clocent 
Ahrons  by  the  state,  on  the  ground  that  he  taught 
a  political  economy  dangerous  to  society,  the  uni- 
versity claiming  that  his  doctrines  were  the  results 
of  his  special  researches. 

With  such  factors  controlling  university  oppor- 
tunities, it  is  apparent  that  the  remarkably  small 
proportion  of  Catholic  teachers  in  the  non-theo- 
logical faculties  is  an  evidence,  together  with  many 
others,  of  the  relative  inferiority  of  the  scholar- 
ship of  that  Church.  It  is  remarkable  that  not 
even  in  Freiburg  or  Wiirzburg,  which  have  only 
Catholic  but  no  Protestant  theological  facul- 
ties, are  the  Catholic  professors  in  the  majority. 
Munich  is  the  only  institution  that  can  in  this 
sense  be  called  a  Catholic  university,  the  Catholic 
teachers  numbering  86  and  the  Protestant  78. 
In  Berlin,  out  of  345  men,  only  19  are  Catholics  ; 
in  Catholic  Bonn,  only  19  out  of  117  ;  Gottingen, 
only  8  out  of  104  ;  Heidelberg,  7  out  of  121  ; 
Strassburg,  4  out  of  119  ;  Tubingen,  7  out  of  68. 

In  other  spheres  the  same  leadership  of  Protest- 
ant scholarship  appears.  In  the  Old  Testament 
department  even  the  Jews  have  not  produced  a 
single  real  leader,  and  in  neither  Old  nor  New  Tes- 
tament lines  have  the  Catholic  scholars  made  more 


PROTESTANT    VS.    CATHOLIC    CHURCH.  63 

than  timid  attempts  to  reconcile  their  traditional 
view-  with  some  of  the  sure  results  of  recent  in- 
vestigations. Even  such  a  literary  venture  as  the 
publication  of  the  magnificent  edition  of  the 
Greek  Fathers  of  the  first  four  centuries,  under- 
taken on  so  grand  a  scale  by  the  Berlin  Academy 
of  Sciences,  is  not,  as  one  would  naturally  expect, 
the  product  of  Catholic,  but  chiefly  of  Protestant 
scholarship,  the  prime  mover  and  worker  in  this 
project  being  the  brilliant  and  indefatigable  Har- 
nack,  of  Berlin.  The  only  prominent  literary 
society  of  Germany  which  is  purely  Catholic  is 
the  Gorres-Gesellsc'haft.  yet  it  and  its  work  is  in 
the  hands  of  a  select  few,  who  receive  as  little 
general  recognition  by  the  Church  authorities  as 
did  Dr.  Schell,  of  Wurzburg,  whose  work,  in 
which  he  aimed  to  demonstrate  that  Catholic 
teachings  are  in  conformity  with  the  best  of  modern 
research,  was  placed  upon  the  Index. 

Still  more  noteworthy  in  this  regard  is  the  fact 
that  in  the  political  and  educational  offices  of  the 
state  the   percentage  of  Roman  in  Public 

Catholics  is  much  smaller  than  Lifs- 

the  proportion  of  that  element  in  the  population 
would  give  them  a  right  to  claim  ;  yet  it  has  been 
demonstrated  again  and  again  that  in  the  appoint- 
ment to  these  offices  the  Roman  Catholics  have 
been  favored,  but  that  so  few  of  this  class  can  be 
appointed  because  there  is  so  small  a  number  of 
Roman  Catholics  by  education  and  training  really 
fitted  to  occupy  such  places  of  trust.  These  facts 
have  been  made  so  plain  and  evident  that  even 
the  protagonists  of  the  cause  of  that  Church  have 
no  complaints  to  make  against  the  civil  authori- 
ties, and  many  of  them,  even  high  church  digni- 
taries, acknowledge  the  correctness  of  the  reasons 
assigned  for  non-appointment  of  Roman  Catholics, 


64        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IX    GERMANY. 

and  at  various  national  congresses  of  Catholics 
held  in  recent  years  men  prominent  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  Church  have  urged  their  people  to  foster 
higher  education,  and  educate  their  young  men 
according  to  modern  ideals. 

This  superiority  of  Protestantism,  however, 
si  lows  itself  in  actual  Church  work  as  well  as  in 
T?„™iCh  ,m:t.rtM  „f  its  intellectual  life  and  in  learned 

Romish    Imitation  ot  . 

Protestant  church  scholarship.  In  many  cases  the 
Roman  Catholics  have  paid 
tribute  to  Protestant  methods  of  doing  Church 
work  by  the  flattery  of  imitation.  This  is  notably 
the  case  in  reference  to  the  care  of  their  co- 
religionists who  live  in  territory  in  which  the  ad- 
herents of  the  rival  communion  predominate,  and 
there  is  that  magnificent  activity  of  the  charity 
of  the  German  Protestant  Church  known  as 
' l  Inner  Missions. ' '  The  Gustavus  Adolphus  Verein, 
of  the  Protestants,  has  found  its  Catholic  counter- 
part and  copy  in  the  Bonefacius  Verein,  which 
aims  to  provide  for  the  churchly  wants  of  Catholics 
in  Protestant  neighborhoods,  and  the  Inner  Mis- 
sion work  of  the  Protestants  has  been  copied  by 
the  Charitas  movement  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  In  none  of  the  great  moral  or  intel- 
lectual movements  does  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  really  lead,  not  even  in  the  handling  of  the 
social  problem,  for  which  her  leaders  claim  so 
much  credit.  The  real  leader  in  the  world  of 
religious  thought  and  work  in  Germany  is  the 
Protestant  Church  ;  and,  except  in  the  political 
field,  where  the  organization  of  that  Church  has 
given  it  such  great  power  through  the  centrum  or 
Catholic  section  in  the  Parliament,  the  Protest- 
antism of  German)T  is  on  the  aggressive  and  Roman 
Catholicism  is  on  the  defensive. 

This   condition  of  affairs  has  brought  with  it 


PROTESTANT    VS.    CATHOLIC    CHURCH. 

gome  natural  and  necessary  consequences.     Chief 
among  these  is  the  noteworthy  fact  thai  the  Prot- 
estant    Church     18     gaining    from         Protestants  Gain 
the    Unman     Catholic    Church    a  in  Converts. 

great  many  more  converts  than  the  latter  is  gain- 
ing from  Protestantism.  Accurate  statistics  in 
this  respect  are  collected  especially  by  Prussia, 
and  they  are  very  instructive.      According  to  these 

it  appears  that  in  the  nine  provinces  of  Prussia, 
between  the  years  1890  and  is'.iy.  no  fewer  than 
!<».. 577  Roman  Catholics  came  over  to  the  Protest- 
ant Church,  while  during  the  same  interval  only 
444'2  Protestants  joined  the  Catholic  Church.  This 
same  condition  prevails  in  all  of  the  German 
states,  with  the  exception  of  Bavaria,  in  which  in 
some  years  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  puns  on 
the  Protestant,  hut  only  slightly.  Prominent 
Protestant  writers,  like  Pieper,  in  his  Kirschliche 
Statistik  of  the  German  Church,  show  in  detail 
on  the  hasis  of  these  figures  how  Protestantism  is 
slowly  gaining  numerically  also  on  the  Catholic 
Church.  It  is  remarkable  how  this  tendency  and 
superior  power  of  attraction  on  the  part  of  the 
Protestant  Church  shows  itself  in  every  particular. 
Pastor  de  la  Roi,  the  leading  living  authority  on 
the  history  of  Jewish  missions,  has  compiled  a 
table  of  average  annual  conversions  from  the 
Jewish  to  the  Christian  religion.  According  to 
this  table  the  annual  conversions  average  5250 
pei-sons.  divided  as  follows  as  t<>  their  Church 
preferences  : 

1.  The  Protestant  Church  receives  1450. 

2.  The  Roman  Catholic  Chinch  receives  L250. 

3.  The  Greek  Catholic  Church  receives  1100. 

4.  Mixed  Jewish  and  Christian  marriages  add  1450. 

The  bulk   of  the  additions  through   marriages 
between  Jews  and  Christians  accrue  to  the  Prot- 


66         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

estant  Church,  so  that  this  communion  receives 
about  80  per  cent,  more  Jewish  converts  than  its 
relative  membership  would  entitle  it  to  ;  while 
the  Catholic  Church  receives  15  per  cent,  less  than 
its  share,  and  the  Greek  Catholics  22  per  cent, 
less  than  its  contingent. 

Practically  the  same  story  is  told  and  empha- 
sized by  the  statistics  of  ' '  mixed  marriages, "  i.  e. , 
Gain  by  between  Protestants  and  Roman 

"Mixed  Marriages."  Catholics,  and  these  data  make 
it  plain  why  it  is  that  the  Roman  Catholic  author- 
ities so  vigorously  oppose  these  unions.  It  is  ap- 
parent at  a  glance  from  these  reports  that,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  the  Catholic  prelates 
insist  upon  an  antenuptial  promise  that  the  issue  of 
such  marriages  is  to  be  reared  in  the  fold  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  this  Church  steadily  and  in  large 
proportion  is  the  loser  by  these  contracts.  The  last 
complete  statistics  of  Prussia  showed  that,  in 
1895,  of  the  children  born  of  the  mixed  marriages 
in  the  thirteen  provinces  of  Prussia,  332,947  were 
being  reared  in  the  Protestant  Church,  and  only 
264,648  in  the  Roman  Catholic.  Rather  strangely 
the  preponderance  of  Protestant  influence  is  shown 
in  both  the  marriages  of  a  Protestant  father  and  a 
Catholic  mother,  as  also  of  a  Catholic  father  with 
a  Protestant  mother.  Of  the  children  resulting 
from  the  first  kind  of  marriage,  122,058  were 
being  reared  as  Catholics,  but  155,350  as  Protest- 
ants;  of  the  latter  kind,  142,590  were  being 
reared  as  Catholics,  but  177,597  as  Protestants. 
Pieper  shows  that  the  Protestant  Church  has  been 
making  special  gains  in  this  regard  in  this  gene-, 
ration  as  never  before.  In  1864  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  had  a  plus  of  5314  children  over  and 
above  the  half  of  the  children  born  from  mixed 
marriages,  but  since  that  time  there  has  been  a 


PROTESTANT    VS.    CATHOLIC   CHURCH.  6*3 

phenomenal  change  and  the  Protestant  cause  has 
gained  68,300  adherents  over  its  share  from  this 
source.  This  makes  an  aggregate  loss  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  present  generation 
of  about  03,000.  Complete  data  from  the  other 
German  states  on  this  subject  arc  not  available, 
but  as  far  as  they  are  obtainable  they  only  repeat 
the  story  told  by  the  Prussian  statistics. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE     GERMAN     PROTESTANT     CHURCH    AND     FOREIGN 
MISSIONS. 

The  Protestant  Church  of    Germany  has   not 

been  a  leader  in  the  remarkable  movement  that 

_.    „  „.  .      has   made   the   nineteenth    the 

The  Germans  Not 

Leaders  in  Foreign    greatest  missionary  century  since 

Mission  Work.  ^  ^  Qf  ^  Apogtleg>    *    Ev(l]1 

now  the  Germans  contribute  only  one-fifteenth  of 
the  sums  spent  for  missions.  Yet  they  have  done 
some  excellent  work  in  this  propaganda,  and  in 
some  respects,  as  in  the  department  of  theoretical 
mission  literature,  have  rendered  pioneer  and  un- 
equaled  services  to  the  great  cause  ;  but  the  lead- 
ership in  this  great  crusade  beyond  a  doubt  be- 
longs to  the  English-speaking  Protestant  world, 
to  England  and  to  America,  which  in  their  lib- 
erality and  zeal  has  demonstrated  that  Christianity 
is  a  power  in  these  lands.  The  reasons  why  the 
Protestant  Church  of  Germany  has  not  done  path- 
finding  duties  in  this  sphere  of  Christian  activity 
are  many,  and  are  chiefly  furnished  by  the  his- 
tory and'  the  development  of  the  Church  itself. 
The  modern  crusade  of  mission  enterprises  was 
really  inaugurated  by  the  Roman  Catholics  already 
in  the  Reformation  century,  largely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  good  the  losses  sustained  by  the 
rapid  spread  of  Protestantism.  Even  if  the  neces- 
sity of  the  internal  development  of  the  Churches 
had  not  absorbed  the  whole  time  and  attention  of 
the  Protestant  leaders  of  that  time,  who  certainly 
(68) 


GERMAN    PROTESTANT    CHURCH.  69 

had  all  they  could  do  in  this  line,  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  either  the  Protestants  of  Ger- 
many or  of  any  other  country  at  thai  time  to 
enter  into  competition  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  tins  work  of  gaining  the  heathen  world 
for  Christianity.  The  commerce  and  the  trade  of 
the  world  at  that  time  were  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  Catholic  nations,  and  the  princes  and  other 
rulers  who  were  the  masters  of  the  means  of  access 
to  the  heathen  nations,  as  also  of  the  means  and 
avenues  for  reaching  these  people,  who  naturally 
have  refused  to  furnish  the  means  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  churches  of  Protestantism,  which 
they  po  much  hated  in  their  own  countries.  His- 
torical circumstances  made  it  impossible  to  estab- 
lish Pn.testant  missions  before  the  time  when 
Protestant  nations  had  gained  the  control  of  the 
seaways  and  had  established  colonies  among  the 
heathen  people. 

This  change  came  when  Holland  and  England 
assumed  the  rulership  of  the  ocean,  which  the 
Portuguese  and   other    Catholic  Historic 

nations  could  )  i<  i  longer  hold.     It  Causes, 

was  at  that  time  that  England  laid  the  foundation 
of  that  colonial  empire  which  now  spans  the 
world,  and  which  that  government  has  at  all  times 
been  so  ready  to  use  for  the  interests  of  the  ( rospel 
can-.'.  England  has  indeed  permitted  Roman 
Catholic-  to  engage  in  mission  work  under  its  Hag. 
exactly  on  the  same  footing  as  the  Protestant 
Churches,  and  in  this  way  has  granted  the 
former  the  rights  and  privileges  which  Catholic 
states  and  rulers  would  not  grant  to  the  represent- 
atives of  Protestantism.  But  Protestantism  has 
prospered  most  under  this  liberal  policy,  and  has, 
by  virtue  of  its  superior  principles,  more  than  re- 
gained what  it  lost  because  the  Catholic  Church 


70        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY.    . 

was  two  centuries  earlier  in  the  field.  Both 
numerically  and  in  influence  Protestant  missions 
have  outstripped  their  Roman  Catholic  rival. 

It  would  probably  be  a  mistake  to  ascribe  only 
to  the  isolation  of  Germany,  to  its  lack  of  politi- 

What  Germany  Cal    pOWer,»tO    its    divisions,    pO- 

Has  Done.  litically  and  ecclesiastically,  the 

fact  that  the  Church  of  this  country  did  not  from 
the  beginning  become  a  missionary  Church  as  did 
that  of  England  and  America.  The  strength  of 
the  Christianity  of  Germany  did  not  lie  so  much 
in  its  practical  life  as  in  the  department  of  thought 
and  scholarship,  and  the  absence  of  opportunity, 
which  was  offered  in  such  abundance  to  the 
Christian  world  of  England  and  America,  only 
strengthened  in  Germany  the  natural  disinclina- 
tion to  engage  in  the  practical  work  of  the  Church. 
In  addition  to  this,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Germany,  in  the  first  decades  of  this  century,  was 
just  passing  through  a  period  of  rationalism,  and 
this  type  of  thought  and  religion  is  always  barren 
of  good  fruits.  To  this  must  yet  be  added  the 
poverty  of  this  country,  which,  only  since  its 
change  from  an  agricultural  to  a  manufacturing 
nation  (1870),  has  begun  to  accumulate  wealth, 
as  also  the  fact  that,  state  and  Church  being 
united,  the  people  of  the  German  Churches  were 
not  accustomed  to  concern  themselves  individually 
about  Church  affairs,  expecting  those  in  authority 
to  take  the  initiative  in  all  matters  of  this  sort. 
In  this  way  the  historical  causes,  the  condition  of 
the  Churches  and  of  the  country,  as  also  the 
training  of  the  people,  at  least  can  explain,  even  if 
it  does  not  excuse,  the  fact  that  Germany  has  not 
been  a  leader  in  this  great  crusade  to  conquer  the 
Gentile  world  for  Christ. 

And  yet  Germany  is  not  without  honor  even  in 


GERMAN    PROTESTANT    CHUR<  H.  71 

the  annals  of  this  great  Gospel  movement.  The 
only  Church  in  Christendom  that  has  a  greater 
constituency  in  its  mission  fields  than  it  has  in  its 
home  congregation  is  the  Moravian  Brethren,  or 
the  Unitas  Fratrum^  and  this  is  a  German  church, 
with  headquarters  at  Hermhut,  in  Saxony, 
whose  missionary  beginnings  go  back  to  the  year 
1733.  If  there  is  any  Protestant  denomination 
that  is  entitled  to  the  claim  of  being  the  mis- 
sionary Church  it  is  this  communion.  Then,  too, 
the  missionary  spirit  was  not  dead  during  this 
period  in  Germany,  but  it  could  find  no  way  of 
practically  demonstrating  its  strength  and  good- 
will. Especially  was  the  Pietistic  movement  in 
the  Halle  University,  at  the  head  August  Her- 
mann Francke,  wide-awake  to  the  needs  of  the 
hour,  and  it  was  through  these  circles  that  not 
only  such  pioneer  missionaries,  as  Ziegenbalg  and 
Sell  wart/,  was  sent  to  India  by  the  Danish  Mis- 
sion Society,  but  also  Muhlenberg  came  to  Amer- 
ica to  look  after  the  neglected  German  Lutherans. 
But  all  of  these  enterprises  were  more  or  less 
spasmodic,  the  movement  was  local  and  not  gen- 
eral, and  the  interests  of  the  Church  at  large  was 
not  aroused  in  this  great  cause. 

Not  to  be  forgotten,  however,  is  the  fact  that 
the  German   Christians   deserve   credit   for  much 
work  that  is  usually  ascribed  to     Helping  others  in 
the  British]  Society.  *  While  there  this  Work- 

were  no,  or  few,  German  societies,  with  meagre 
means,  to  send  out  men  to  the  foreign  field,  there 
were  scores  and  scores  of  nun  who  enlisted  in  this 
service  under  the  auspices  of  English  mission  so- 
cieties. Indeed,  some  of  the  very  best  material 
that  the  English  societies  utilized  in  its  fields, 
especially  for  literary  work,  such  as  the  translating 
of  the  Scriptures  into  the  language  of  the  natives, 


PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

was  secured  from  the  Germans.  The  Basel  So- 
ciety, in  particular,  gave  the  London  Society  many 
excellent  workers.  An  illustration  in  point  is  the 
work  done  by  this  Society  in  Abyssinia.  Nearly 
all  the  names  of  the  men  who,  in  the  middle  of 
the  present  century,  undertook  the  hard  task  of 
regaining  for  a  vital  Christianity  this  old  Christian 
people  of  Africa,  with  its  petrified  creed  and  its 
mongrel  faith,  were  Germans.  Among  them  are 
Gobat,  who  afterward  became  the  second  Anglo- 
Prussian  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  ;  also  Kugler,  Isen- 
berg,  who  prepared  an  Amharic  or  modern  Abys- 
sinian grammar  and  dictionary  ;  Dr.  Krapf,  as 
also  Flad,  Bender,  Mayer,  Kienzler,  M  tiller, 
Stein,  and  others.  This  state  of  affairs  prevailed 
also  in  other  mission  fields,  especially  in  parts  of 
India,  so  that  while  England  furnished  the  man- 
agement and  the  means,  the  Germans  furnished 
at  least  a  goodly  number  of  the  men,  and  especially 
of  scholarly  men. 

That  Germany  has  changed  in   this  regard  in 
recent  decades,  and,  instead  of  rendering  merely 
progress  by         handmaid  services  to  others,  has 
Germans.  become  an    independent   factor 

and  force  in  the  mission  world,  is  purely  the  out- 
come of  the  Evangelical  spirit  of  the  Protestant 
Church,  although  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
example  of  the  activity  of  the  English  and 
American  Churches  had  something  to  do  with  this 
change.  Yet  foreign  mission  work  in  Germany, 
as  indeed  all  Christian  work  outside  of  that  which 
pertains  exclusively  to  the  immediate  wants  of  the 
congregations,  must  be  and  is  entirely  voluntary 
on  the  part  of  the  Protestant  clergy  and  laity.  No 
State  Church  and  no  State  Church  authorities,  as 
such,  have  done  anything  to  inaugurate  or  en- 
courage such  a  movement.     It  does  not  fall  to  the 


GERMAN    PROTESTANT    CHURCH.  t3 

province  of  State  Church  government.  There  is, 
therefore,  no  mission  or  any  other  extra-congrega- 
tional Church  work  carried  on  by  the  govern- 
ment or  by  the  State  Churches.  In  America 
Synods  and  Conferences,  and  in  England  the 
Established  Church  or  the  various  organizations  of 
the  Non-conformists,  are,  as  a  rule,  the  real  found- 
ers and  maintainers  of  the  various  mission  enter- 
prises, although  privately  organized  societies  are 
also  active  in  the  work.  In  Germany  this  entire 
work  is  done  by  privately  organized  associations, 
which  have  been  called  into  existence  solely  by 
the  zeal  and  the  energy  of  those  whose  hearts 
prompt  them  to  labor  for  the  extension  of  Christ's 
kingdom.  Foreign  mission  work  by  the  German 
Protestants  is  accordingly  purely  a  work  of  faith, 
and  it  is  this  fact  that  has  controlled  the  organi- 
zation of  the  various  societies.  These  have  not 
been  formed  along  national  or  State  Church  lines. 
but,  disregarding  these  limits,  they  are  composed 
of  men  from  all  the  parts  of  the  Empire  who 
have  agreed  to  conduct  mission  work  on  a  certain 
doctrinal  basis  and  in  accordance  with  certain 
mission  principles. 

The  difference  accordingly  between  the  various 
associations    are   those   of    doctrine   and    dogma 

Chiefly.        Forexample,   the  Her-  German  Mission 

mannsburg   Society    is    distinc-  societies. 

tively  Lutheran,  a-  is  also  that  of  Leipzig  and 
Neudetteslau,  and  the  Free  Church  of  Hanover, 
although  not  all  are  equally  pronounced  in  their 
denominational  bias.  Again,  thevarious  societies 
that  find  their  chief  constituency  in  Prussia,  with 
their  headquarters  in  Berlin,  represent  various 
schools,  differing  more  or  less  from  each  other 
within  the  Union  Church  of  Prussia.  Again,  the 
Basel    Society,    which,    while   its   institutions  are 


74        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

situated  in  Switzerland,  is  really  a  German  asso- 
ciation, ignores  the  differences  between  the  Lu- 
theran and  Reformed  Churches,  and  basis  its  work 
on  a  broad  Evangelical  foundation.  Again,  cer- 
tain societies  are  the  organizations  that  have  been 
collected  around  some  prominent  mission  worker, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  Gossner  Society,  while  some 
other  associations  aim  at  a  particular  kind  of 
work  in  the  foreign  field,  as  the  Women's  Society 
for  the  Christian  Education  of  Women  in  the 
East,  or  purposely  confine  their  activity  to  special 
fields  of  labor,  as  the  Jerusalem  Society  of  Berlin. 
In  this  way  local  and  other  causes  have  con- 
tributed to  the  division  of  the  foreign  mission 
work  in  Germany  into  many  countries,  not  a  few 
of  which  are  small  and  their  work  very  limited. 
This  same  spirit  of  division  and  subdivision  along 
the  line  of  theoretical  differences,  which  has  been 
so  potent  a  factor  in  the  historical  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal development  of  Germany  in  general,  has  also 
been  in  evidence  in  the  foreign  mission  work  of 
the  Churches.  Then,  too,  the  Germans  have  not 
yet  appreciated  the  old  truth  that  in  unity  there 
is  strength. 

While  it  is  not  in  the  practical  field  that  the 
Germans  have  shown  any  superiority  or  leader- 
German  Mission      ship  in  the  department  of  foreign 
Literature.  missions,     they   certainly   have 

done  so  in  the  field  of  mission  literature.  Indeed 
they  have  created  a  science  of  mission,  in  so  far 
as  such  a  discipline  exists  at  all.  The  leading 
living  authority  in  this  line  is  Professor  G.  War- 
neck,  of  the  University  of  Halle,  who  occupies 
-  the  only  chair  in  Christendom  that  is  devoted  ex- 
clusively and  alone  to  the  study  of  missions.  His 
three- volume  work  on  Missions  Lehre  is  the  only 
scientific  exposition  of  missions  in  existence,  while 


GERMAN    PROTESTANT    CHURCH.  (Q 

the  Alegemeim  Misswns-ZeUschrift,  edited  for  more 
than  twenty-five  years  by  the  same  specialist,  is 
the  chief  organ  in  the  world  for  the  discussions  of 
the  theoretical  problems  of  missions.  The  range  of 
these  discussions  is  chiefly  Biblical,  the  purpose 
being  to  determine  what  the  Apostolic  precept  and 
example  teach  with  reference  to  the  proper  man- 
ner and  methods,  ideals  and  aims  of  missioD  un- 
dertakings. As  a  consequence,  German  mission 
methods  are  Evangelical  and  Biblical,  and  not 
under  the  influence  of  a  well-meant  but  unwar- 
ranted enthusiasm.  No  German  worker  in  mis- 
sions would  ever  be  moved  by  the  cry  of  "  Evan- 
gelization of  the  world  in  the  present  generation," 
he  being  content  to  seek  out  what  the  Lord's  ways 
are  in  the  matter  and  then  to  do  it  in  the  Lord's 
way  as  best  he  knows,  leaving  all  the  results  and 
the  success  or  failure  to  God.  German  mission 
work  is  conservative,  but  pronouncedly  Biblical 
in  ideals  and  methods. 

In   accordance  with  this  position  the  German 
school    is    systematically    at    work    in    trying    to 
awaken    the    interest    and    the     Bird,s.eye  View  of 
co-operation  of  the  Church  mem-  German 

i  •        , i  •     n       i  Mission  Work. 

bers  m  the  cause,  especially  by 
regular  Missionsstundm.  These  ••mission  hours" 
are  lectures  or  sermons  in  which  especially  the 
Biblical  ideas  and  teachings  concerning  the  out- 
spread of  the  kingdom  of  God  among  men  are 
discussed,  while  in  many  cases  these  discourses 
are  devoted  to  reports  and  accounts  from  the  mis- 
sion field,  given  not  as  mere  matters  of  fact,  but 
as  illustrations  and  examples  of  Scriptural  mis- 
sion ideals.  A  classical  collection  of  such  mi.— ion 
studies,  which  have  proved  to  be  great  educational 
helps  to  the  German  Churches,  has  been  pub- 
lished by  Warneck  and  Grundemann. 


76        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IX    GERMANY. 

An  excellent  idea  of  the  present  status  of  the 
twenty-three  mission  societies  formed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  German  Protestant  Church  can  be 
gained  from  the  following  report,  giving  the  data 
at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  ap- 
peared originally  in  Warneck's  Zeitschrift  for  Jan- 
uary, 1901,  from  the  pen  of  Pastor  Dohler.  The 
leading  particulars  are  the  following  : 


OTJ 

t 

CO 

e3 

Name  of  Society  and  Mission 

a;  a; 

«  1 

•BJ-.8 

a  a 

eS  O 

£ 

w  as 

Fields. 

£  5 

0>  o 

3-2 

aptize 
Meml 

8 *S   <v  a 

g«     ~  — 

A 

Ph 

m 

w 

% 

w 

1.  Moravian    Brethren    (Labrador, 

Alaska,North  American  Indians, 

West   Indies,   Central  America, 

Cape  Colony,   German  East  Af- 

rica, Australia,  Central  Asia). . . . 

1732 

131 

91,283 

194 

1104 

621,492 

2.  Easel   Society    (Southern    India, 

China,  Gold  Coast,  Cameroons). 

1815 

56 

40,765 

189 

5881,5 

3.  Berlin  Mission  Society  [Berlin  I.] 

(South   Africa,   China,    German 

East  Africa) 

1823 

74 

37,293 

101 

559 

591,049 

4.  Rhenish   Mission    Society    (Ger- 

man Southwest  Africa,  Cape  Col- 

ony, China,  Dutch  East  India). . 

1828 

91 

77,819 

130 

955 

752,803 

5.  North  German  Society  of  Bremen 

(Slave  Coast,  Toga) 

1836 

4 

2,407 

14 

20 

144,000 

6.  Gossner  Mission  Society  [Berlin 

II.]  (North  India) " 1836 

20 

43,348 

41 

285 

239,597 

7.  Leipzig   Mission   Society  (Eolith 

India,  German  East  Africa,  Eng- 

lish East  Africa) 1836 

45 

18,538 

47 

264 

534,428 

8.  Woman's  Society   for    Christian 

Education    of    Women     in    the 

Orient  (North  India) 1842 

9.  Hermaunsburg    Society    (South 

1 

26,089 

Africa,  East  India) 1849 

55 

50,163 

62 

303 

365,569 

10.  Berlin     Woman's     Society     for 

China  (Hong-Kong) 1850 

1 

1 

17,526 

11.  Jerusalem     Society     (Jerusalem 

and  neighborhood) '1852 

6 

370 

4 

5 

119,438 

12.  Schleswig-Holstein  Society  (East 

India) 1877 

7 

1103 

12 

16 

115,709 

13.  Neukirchener     Society       (Java, 

Africa) 1881 

10 

992 

17 

26 

83,637 

14.  General       Protestant       Society 

(Japan,  China) 1884 

3 

112 

7 

7 

89,955 

15.  Evangelical     Society     for     East 

Africa  [Berlin  III.]  (East  Africa) 

1886 

8 

343 

20 

20 

242,659 

GERMAN    PROTESTANT    CHURCH. 


Name  of  So<  mv  and  Mission 
Fields. 


- 


16.  Neudetteslau       Society       (New 
Guinea  and  Queensland) 1886 

17.  Barmen  Society  for  China 

18.  German  Society  for  the  Blind  in 
<  hina .' 1890 

19.  Minimi  Society  of  German  Hai- 
ti-!- of  Berlin  (Camer is  1898 

l'ip.  Mission     of     Hanoverian     Free 
(hur.h  (South  Africa  | 1892 

21.  Pilger  Mis-inn  of  Basel  Society  in 
China ...  1895 

22.  German  China  Inland  Mission  of 
Hamburg 1898 

23.  Sudar  Pioneer  Mission  of  Eisen- 
ach  1900 

Total 551  369,493    880  4205  5,449,276 


7. 

-  ^ 
pq 

3  .£       $ 

-  f    -  — 

o"    -~- 
3  S     -  - 

-    to 

7-f 

5 

7 

14 

(12 

12  .... 
9      17 

78,629 
21,737 

1 

t 

::.:;:,- 

13 

■_',1  12 

5      50 

51,204 

'.' 

2,730 

9      12 

25,128 

:', 

5  .... 

7,762 

1 

9 

1  .... 

1 

1 

CHAPTER  VII. 

INNER    MISSION   WORK    OF    THE  GERMAN  TROTESTANT 
CHURCH. 

The  idea  that  the  German  Christians  are  a  set 
of  dreamers,  interested,  indeed,  in  the  discussion 
of  abstract  philosophical  and  theological  problems 
and  perplexities,  but  with  little  or  no  appreciation 
of  the  serious  practical  questions  that  confront 
Christianity  and  the  Church,  and  accordingly  with 
little  interest  in  the  solution  of  these  matters,  was 
never  a  correct  estimate  of  the  Church  in  the  land 
of  Luther,  and  is  least  of  all  true  of  the  Church 
of  the  present  day.  There  has  been  a  remarkable 
change  in  recent  decades  in  the  whole  trend  and 
tendency  of  German  life,  and  the  Germans  have 
become  intensely  practical.  The  change  from  a 
predominantly  agricultural  people,  with  no  vision 
beyond  the  horizon  of  their  own  fields  and  Father- 
land, to  a  manufacturing  nation,  contending  for 
the  commercial  mastery  of  the  world  with  such 
countries  as  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States, 
has  been  reflected,  too,  in  the  spiritual  and  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  German  nation.  The  sharp 
attacks  that  have  been  made  on  the  classical 
tongues  and  the  humanistic  gymnasium  or  college 
as  the  basis  of  a  technical  education  and  the  phe- 
nomenal development  of  the  technological  schools 
and  the  natural  sciences  is  an  indication  that  the 
estimate  put  upon  old  educational  values  has  been 
changed. 

(78) 


INNER     MISSION     WORK. 


79 


Indeed,  the  conservatives  are  lamenting  the  Loss 
of  old  ideals  in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of 
Germany.  The  Church,  too,  has  taken  part  m 
this  change  of  front,  although  it  is  an  open  ques- 
tion just  to  what  extent  this  development  of  the 
practical  energies  of  the  Church  has  hern  called 
forth  by  the  general  change  of  ideas  and  ideals  of 
the  nation  at  large. 

In  no  sphere  have  the  German  Christians  in 
recent  years  shown  it  more  that  they  are  not  only 
a  set  of  thinkers  and  scholars,  hut  also  a  hand 
of  earnest  workers,  than  in  that  phenomenally 
varied  field  of  labor  commonly  called  "Inner 
Missions."  It  is  a  species  of  Christian  work  which 
in  some  of  its  features  can  be  duplicated  among 
the  Christians  of  other  lands,  but  in  its  aggregate 
and  details  is  found  only  in  Germany,  where  it 
has  been  developed  under  historical  conditions, 
and  as  a  result  of  the  needs  of  the  hour,  as  these 
were  produced  by  the  character  and  workings  of 
the  State  Churches.  He  who  wishes  to  study 
German  Protestant  Christianity  at  work  must 
Irani  its  activity  in  this  sphere  of  labor. 

The  Protestant  Church  of  Germany  has  only 
recently  celebrated  the  semi-centennial  of  the 
inauguration  of  this  many-sided  and  extensive 
activity  of  Christian  love,  named  "Inner  Mis- 
sions." It  is  fifty  years  since  Wichern,  of  the 
Rauhe  Haus,  in  Hamburg,  recognized  by  all  hands 
as  the  "Father  of  Inner  Missions,"  at  the  great 
Church  Convention  at  Wittenberg,  from  Luther's 
pulpit,  sent  out  his  herald's  cry  thai  "Saving 
love  must  become  for  the  Church  the  great  instru- 
ment through  which  to  give  proof  of  her  faith." 
Some  months  later  he  published  his  "Appeal  to 
the  German  Nation,"  and  through  these  measures, 
and  his  unbounded   enthusiasm,  was  begun  and 


80         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

organized  a  work  of  lo:  e  for  the  neglected  and  lost 
that  in  magnitude  and  systematic  operation  can- 
not be  paralleled  anywhere. 

' '  Inner  Missions ' '  is  not  the  same  as  ' '  home 
missions."  It  includes  this  latter,  but  embraces 
vastly  more.  It  is  a  work  that  aims  in  the  name 
of  Christian  love  to  take  care  of  the  maimed,  the 
halt,  and  the  blind,  physically,  mentally,  and 
spiritually,  and  thus  to  make  Christianity  and 
Christian  principles  the  controlling  factor  and 
force  in  the  care  of  those  who  cannot  or  will  not 
care  for  themselves.  Not  as  though  the  German 
state  had  neglected  to  take  care  of  its  work,  but 
Inner  Missions  aim  to  do  all  this  from  the  stand- 
point of  positive  and  evangelical  Christianity,  and 
not  as  a  matter  of  secular  concern.  It  purposes 
not  to  antagonize  or  undo  what  the  civil  authori- 
ties may  have  done  for  the  unfortunates  and  the 
violators  of  public  order,  but  rather  to  supplement 
this  work  and  to  enlarge  it  in  such  a  way  that  per- 
manent good  results  may  be  achieved,  and  that 
the  progress  of  evil  and  misfortune  through  the 
establishment  of  Christian  convictions  may  be 
hemmed  in  and  prevented.  In  Germany,  offi- 
cially, everybody  is  born  into  the  Church,  and  it 
is  comparatively  rare  that  people  claim  to  be 
neither  Protestant,  Catholic,  nor  Jew.  But  count- 
less thousands  of  these  nominal  adherents  are  in 
reality  estranged  from  Christianity,  and  the 
Church  having  a  claim  upon  them  aims,  through 
its  Inner  Mission  work,  not  only  to  win  them  for 
active  Church  membership,  as,  e.  g.,  is  done 
through  the  great  city  mission  societies  in  Berlin 
and  elsewhere,  through  the  sermon  distribution, 
which  disposes  of  fully  220,000  evangelical  ser- 
mons every  week  among  those  who  cannot  aitend 
divine  service,  but  especially  by  active  Christian 


INNER    mission     WORK.  81 

work  to  regain  the  unfortunate  lost,  and  thus  to 
make  Christianity  the  leading  power  in  the  life  of 
the  nation.  This  is  the  ideal  which  it  is  aimed  to 
realize. 

Inner  Missions  did  not  start  out  from,  nor  does 
it  as  yet  possess,  a  fixed  programme  of  its  spheres 
of  operation  and  its  various  works.  It  made  use 
of  whatever  beginnings  it  found,  as  was  the  case 
in  regard  to  the  institution  of  deaconesses,  and 
added  to  its  fields  whenever  opportunity  presented 
its.lf.  doing  whatever  it  could  wherever  the  needs 
of  the  hour  called  for  its  endeavors  and  wherever 
the  Lord  opened  a  door.  Its  operations  have  no 
connection  whatever  with  the  State  Churches  or 
with  the  officials  of  the  State  Churches.  It  is 
entirely  a  voluntary  organization,  the  membership 
of  the  various  branches  and  departments  consist- 
ing of  those  whose  love  for  the  work  has  prompted 
them  to  offer  their  hand  and  their  heart  and  means 
for  the  thorough  Christianization  of  the  masse-. 
In  all  kinds  and  phases  of  Gospel  work,  other 
than  providing  for  the  immediate  Church  wants 
of  the  people,  the  German  Church  authorities  do 
nothing,  leaving  it  to  the  promptings  of  Christian 
charity  to  engage  in  mission  work,  both  foreign 
and  home  and  otherwise.  In  judging  of  the  credit 
to  In-  given  to  the  German  Churches  for  their 
activity  this  feature  should  not  he  lost  sight  of, 
that  all  things  there  are  the  result  of  volunteer 
promptings  of  Christian  conviction.  Inner  Mis- 
sion work  is  thoroughly  organized,  territorially 
and  otherwise,  the  head  management  being  in  the 
hands  of  a  central  committee,  at  the  head  of 
which  is  always  found  some  prominent  Protestant 
leader,  either  clerical  or  lay.  Wichern  himself 
held  for  a  number  of  years  this  office.  The 
present  incumbent  is  a  layman,  namely.  Councilor 


82        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

R.  Goebel,  the  head  of  the  Imperial  Insurance 
Department  of  the  German  Government, .  Con- 
gresses or  conventions  are  regularly  held,  at  which 
the  leading  theologians  and  churchmen  are  present. 
The  famous  court  preacher,  Stocker,  has  long  since 
been  a  power  in  these  assemblies,  and  among  the 
participants  are  generally  the  chief  conservative 
theological  teachers  of  a  number  of  the  universi- 
ties. Regular  courses  of  instruction  are  given  in 
the  various  branches  for  those  who  want  to  devote 
their  life  to  this  task,  these  courses  having  last 
year  been  given  in  Berlin,  Breslau,  and  Stettin. 
There  exists  already  a  pension  fund  for  those  who 
have  grown  old  and  poor  in  the  service. 

Some  idea  of  the  progress  during  these  fifty 
years  can  be  gained  from  the  summary  published 
by  Pastor  R.  Schneider,  in  the  ' '  Theologisches 
Jahrbuch "  for  1899,  where  (page  327)  he 
says  : 

What  a  work  has  been  done  and  how  it  has  developed  ! 
In  1848  there  were  200  deaconesses  in  connection  with  the 
German  Churches,  and  now  there  are  16,000  ;  then  there 
were  48  Rettungshauser,  now  there  are  343  ;  then  scarcely 
any  young  men's  associations,  now  there  are  1700,  with 
a  membership  of  85,000  ;  then  no  Herbergen,  now  there 
are  460  ;  then  no  city  missionary,  now  50  in  Berlin  alone  ; 
then  no  Christian  press  for  the  people,  now  1,500,000 
copies  of  religious  papers  issued  every  Lord's  day,  etc. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  of  giving  an  intelligent 
idea  of  the  vast  interests  which  are  included  in 
the  work  of  Inner  Missions  is  to  pass  in  review,  in 
outline  form,  the  leading  departments  included  in 
this  class  of  Christian  activities. 

1.  The  Deaconess  Cause. — To  Germany  belongs 
the  distinction  of  having  revived  and  developed  to 
great  usefulness  the  Apostolic  office  of  the  deacon- 


INNER     mission     WORK. 

<  ss.  From  small  beginnings  made  by  Pastor 
Fliedner,  in  Kaiserswerth,  on  the  Rhine,  the 
deaconess  work  has  Bpread  all  over  the  world,  and 
has  become  firmly  established  in  all  Protestant 
countries.  The  charity  and  educational  work  of 
these  sisters,  especially  their  wonderful  skill  as 
nurses,  have  won  for  them  the  friendship  and 
good-will  of  the  world,  and  has  led  to  an  imitation 
of  the  German  models  in  this  work  by  Christians 
everywhere.  The  evangelical  principles  upon 
which  the  order  has  hern  established,  which  do 
not  include  any  of  the  anti-biblical  ideas  and 
rules  that  control  the  nuns  and  their  order  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  have  only  strengthened 
their  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  Protestant 
( "hurches.  Their  exceptionally  good  training  in  the 
motherhouses,  their  entire  devotion  to  their  work, 
their  usefulness  in  assisting  the  pastors  and  the 
people  in  looking  after  the  sick  and  the  needy  of 
the  fold,  as  well  as  other  characteristics,  have 
made  the  deaconess  order  a  permanent  institution 
of  the  Protestant  Church.  According  to  the  latest 
report  accessible,  the  German  Church  alone  has 
13,000  deaconesses.  Of  these,  nearly  11.000  be- 
long to  the  associations  connected  with  the  Kaisers- 
werth Union  of  Motherhouses.  while  the  other- 
are  in  union  with  homes  that  are  independent. 
The  German  Church  reports  the  hulk  of  the 
deaconesses  of  the  world,  for  the  total  number  is 
about  16,000,  so  that  only  3000  are  found  in  the 
Protestant  Churches  of  other  countries.  The 
phenomenal  popularity  and  growth  of  this  cause 
throughout  the  Protestant  world  can  be  seen  from 
the  fact  that  within  the  last  ten  years  it  has  in- 
creased over  87  per  cent.  Of  this  growth,  the  fol- 
lowing list  will  give  a  clear  idea  : 


84 


THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY 


Year. 

Number  of 
Motherhouses. 

Sisters. 

Fields 
of  Labor. 

1864 

30 
40 
48 
50 
51 
53 
54 
57 
63 
68 
80 

1,592 

2,106 

2,657 

3,239 

3,901 

4,748 

5,653 

5,729 

7,129 
10,412     • 
13,309 

368 

1868 

529 

1872 

648 

1875 

866 

1878 

1093 

1881 

1436 

1884 

1724 

1888 

2263 

1891 

2663 

1894 

3641 

1898 

4745 

The  growth  of  the  Kaiserswerth  Union  of 
Motherhouses  and  their  work  can  be  seen  from  the 
fact  that  in  1894  it  had  10,412  sisters  in  3641 
fields  of  work,  while  in  1898  it  had  13,309  sisters 
in  4745  fields  of  labor. 

These  deaconesses  are  by  no  means  all  employed 
in  Germany.  In  fact,  the  majority  are  not  found 
in  the  Fatherland,  but  have  been  generously  sent 
to  all  corners  of  the  globe  whenever  their  services 
in  these  two  leading  spheres  of  teaching  and 
nursing  have  been  called  for.  In  every  Chris- 
tian country  of  the  globe,  in  the  East  and  the 
West,  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  the  German 
deaconess  is  found  doing  her  labor  of  love  for 
sweet  charity's  sake.  The  first  deaconesses  that 
were  brought  to  America  were  secured  nearly  fifty 
years  ago  by  Dr.  W.  Passavant  for  his  hospital  in 
Pittsburg,  Pa.  The  order  is  sure  to  grow,  as  it  is 
excellently  organized  and  established  on  evangel- 
ical principles.  This  whole  department  of  Chris- 
tian activity  is  probably  the  most  international 
and  cosmopolitan  in  existence  Of  the  eighty 
Motherhouses  in  connection  with  Kaiserswerth, 
twenty-nine  are  in  other  countries  than  Germany, 


INNEB     mission     WORK.  85 

and  these  report  2764  sisters.  Of  these  Mother- 
houses  thirty-four  are  in  connection  with  the  ( ).rder 
of  St.  Jolin.  and  are  prepared  to  render  hospital 
services  in  times  of  war.  Indeed,  by  a  special  ar- 
rangement made  with  the  Deaconess  Mother- 
houses,  over  1500  deaconesses  could  be  at  once 
called  into  service  in  ease  Germany  should  be- 
come involved  in  a  war. 

Side  by  side  with  the  deaconess  order  is  also 
thai  of  the  male  deacons,  the  object  being  that 
those  who  enter  the  ranks  of  this  union  are  to 
render  such  services  of  love  and  charity  which 
women,  on  account  of  their  sex  and  natural  physi- 
cal weakness,  are  not  able  to  render.  The  first  of 
these  homes  for  deacons  was  established  in 
Hamburg  in  1842,  and  now  there  are  fourteen  of 
this  kind  in  the  Fatherland,  total  number  of 
brothers  being  1829.  Their  main  work  is  to  act  in 
the  capacity  of  male  nurses,  wherever  these  are  in 
demand,  in  asylums  for  the  insane,  the  epileptics, 
etc.,  etc.  This  department  of  work  is  developing 
only  slowly. 

2.  City  Mission  Work. — Within  the  last  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  years  city  missions  have  become  for 
the  Church  of  Germany  a  practical  problem  of  the 
first  magnitude.  The  growth  of  the  cities  within 
this  period  has  been  marvelous.  In  fact,  the  per- 
centage of  increase  in  these  centres  of  population 
has  been  greater  in  the  Fatherland  than  it  has  been 
in  the  United  States.  The  causes  of  this  growth 
are  chiefly  to  be  found  in  the  economic  transfor- 
mation of  the  German  people  since  the  close  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  of  1870.  The  people  flocked 
to  the  great  industrial  and  manufacturing  cities,  as 
these  increased  the  opportunities  for  remunerative 
work  far  beyond  the  possibilities  afforded  by  the 
country.      In  this  way  Berlin,  which  a  generation 


86        THE    PROTESTANT   CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

ago  was  little  more  than  an  overgrown  village,  is 
now  a  metropolitan  capital  city  of  nearly  two  mil- 
lion, and  other  centres,  such  as  Hamburg,  Leipzig, 
Munich,  and  many  others,  grew  at  the  same  rates 
of  increase. 

To  provide  for  the  spiritual  wants  of  these  hosts 
that  nocked  to  the  cities,  and  who  thereb}^  had 
severed  their  old  Church  ties  without  as  a  rule 
themselves  seeking  for  new  ones,  especially  as 
materialistic  interests  and  financial  success  were  in 
nearly  all  cases  the  motives  for  this  change  of 
abode,  became  a  problem  great  enough  to  vex  and 
perplex  the  best  of  organizers.  Certainly  normally 
it  would  have  been  the  duty  of  the  State  Churches 
to 'provide  at  least  Church  homes  and  ministers  for 
these  new  additions  to  the  cities,  and  something 
indeed  was  done  in  this  direction  by  the  authori- 
ties, but  naturally  not  enough.  As  a  result,  the 
city  parishes,  to  whom  these  people  naturally  be- 
longed, grew  to  immense  proportions,  and  in  Ber- 
lin, for  instance,  there  were  parishes  that  included 
from  75,000  to  125,000  souls  in  charge  of  only 
three  or  four  pastors.  Naturally  the  seating  capac- 
ities of  the  Churches  were  glaringly  insufficient 
for  the  population,  so  that  people  could  not  be  ac- 
commodated in  the  Churches  even  had  they  so  de- 
si  red.  Still  more  dangerous  for  the  spiritual  con- 
dition of  these  new-comers  was  the  fact  that  they  to 
a  great  extent  came  under  the  influence  of  the 
anti-Christian  elements,  especially  the  Social  Dem- 
ocrats. When  early  in  the  seventies  the  law  that 
compelled  people  to  baptize  their  children  was  an- 
nulled, and  it  was  officially  reported  that  there 
were  ten  thousand  un baptized  children  in  that 
city,  a  Social  Democratic  paper  expressed  its  joy 
in  these  words  :  "  Hurrah,  for  the  first  ten  thou- 
sand heathen  in  Berlin  !  " 


[NNEB     MISSION     WORK.  81 

Earnest  Christian  men  could  not  keep  silent  to 
such  a  challenge.  Under  the  leadership  of  Pastor 
Ad.  Stocker,  now  an  ex-courl  preacher,  anda  born 
agitator  and  organizer,  and  a  man  of  positive 
Christian  convictions,  the  work  of  saving  the  neg- 
lected souls  of  the  Berlin  populace  was  under- 
taken by  the  City  Mission  Society,  which  he  or- 
ganized, in  connection  with  which  the  City  Church 
Building  Society  did  its  splendid  work  of  erecting 
in  Berlin  enough  of  new  ( Jhurches  to  accommodate 
the  people.  This  Society  was  splendidly  organ- 
ized and  managed,  and.  under  the  auspices  of  the 
German  Emperor  and  Empress,  the  later  of  whom 
became  the  Patroness  of  the  Society,  which  posi- 
tion she  still  holds,  and  both  of  whom  contributed 
most  liberally  to  its  support,  it  has  succeeded  in 
erecting  fifty-one  new  Churches,  a  number  of 
which  are  tine  specimens  of  architectural  art.  The 
whole  sum  expended  was  over  twenty-four  million 
marks,  and  the  money  came  chiefly  from  private 
friends  of  the  movement,  although  the  Berlin 
Synod  and  some  other  official  bodies  made  dona- 
tions. 

But  this  alone  could  not  do  the  work  intended. 
The  masses  themselves  had  to  he  won  again  for 
the  Church  into  which  they  were  born,  hut  which 
they  had  deserted.  The  City  Mission  Society  ac- 
cordingly went  to  work  to  seek  out  the  people  and 
to  win  them  for  an  active  Christianity.  The  most 
popular  phase  of  this  work  was  the  sermon  distri- 
bution scheme,  which  years  ago  had  a  small  be- 
ginning, but  had  now  reached  immense  propor- 
tions, these  sermons  being  distributed  not  only  in 
Berlin  and  other  German  cities,  but  they  are  sent 
all  over  the  world  wherever  there  are  Germans 
who  are  not  in  active  connection  with  theChurch. 
The  object  of  this  distribution  is  to  put  a  sermon, 


88        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

together  with  a  selection  from  the  Scriptures,  a 
hymn,  and  a  short  prayer,  into  the  hand  of  each 
one  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  men  in  the  cities 
who,  on  account  of  their  work  and  the  demands  of 
the  Continental  Sunday,  cannot  attend  the  public 
services.  Among  the  classes  profited  by  this  pro- 
paganda are  the  street  car  men,  the  cab  drivers, 
the  waiters  in  hotels  and  restaurants,  and  many 
others.  The  movement  proved  to  be  eminently 
successful,  and  the  sermons,  which  are  not  given 
away  as  a  rule,  but  sold  for  a  pfennig  a  piece,  are 
generally  gladly  bought.  In  the  work  of  distribu- 
tion, which  is  entirely  voluntary  and  without  re- 
muneration, active  Christian  workers  from  all  the 
walks  of  life  take  part.  The  nobleman  and  the  work- 
ingman,  the  scholar  and  the  common  man,  both 
men  and  women,  on  Sunday  morning  devote  one 
or  more  hours  of  their  time  to  carrying  these  ser- 
mons to  those  who  can  make  use  of  them.  The 
sermons  themselves  are  as  a  rule  of  the  positive 
evangelical  type,  taken  from  the  old  and  from  the 
modern  preachers  of  Germany.  Not  rarely  are 
sermons  from  Luther  found  in  this  collection. 

But  more  than  this  was  necessary.  It  was  im- 
perative that  those  who  had  been  estranged  from 
the  Church  should  be  visited  in  their  homes  and 
efforts  be  made  to  bring  them  back  to  active  con- 
nection with  the  Church. 

The  Berlin  City  Mission  Society  alone  employs 
five  pastors  as  inspectors  and  ten  candidates  of 
theology,  forty-seven  other  city  mission  men,  and 
eleven  women.  They  work  in  connection  with  and 
under  the  direction  of  the  pastors  of  the  parishes, 
some  of  which  still  embrace  from  15,000  to  30,- 
000  souls.  The  means  employed  is  pastoral  visi- 
tation from  house  to  house,  distribution  of  good 
Christian  literature,  public  services  for  adults  and 


INNEB     mission     WORK.  89 

for  children,  Bible  hours,  and  religious  meetings 
of  various  kinds.  Special  attention  is  paid  to 
young  girls  who  may  be  in  danger  in  their  new 
surroundings,  to  former  convicts,  and  the  like  The 
Berlin  missionaries  reported  that  in  a  recenl  year 
they  had  relieved  8000  persons  who  were  in  need 
of  bread,  had  persuaded  several  hundred  couples 
who  were  living  together  without  being  married  to 
enter  upon  this  estate,  and  induced  hundreds  t«> 
have  their  children  baptized.  Among  the  most 
discouraging  work  th  -y  had  to  do  was  to  i leal  with 
those  who  were  given  to  a  life  of  prostitution  ;  yet 
it  was  reported  that  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  these 
had  been  regained  for  morality  and  a  Christian 
life.  Children  as  young  as  eleven  years  were 
found  to  have  sinned  in  this  respect.  A  branch 
society  is  the  association  called  "Dienst  an  Arbeits- 
l&ren,"  which  seeks  especially  to  help  those  who 
are  out  of  work.  They  provide  meals  for  the 
needy,  and  seek  to  gain  employment  for  them. 
Their  meetings  on  thirty-two  Sundays  during  1  899 
were  attended  by  23,333  visitors,  and  not  a  few 
in  danger  of  being  lost  were  restored  to  their 
friends. 

The  city  mission  work  is  not  by  any  means  con- 
fined to  Berlin.  In  fact,  it  was  not  even  first 
begun  in  the  capital  city,  the  first  having  been 
established  by  Wichern,  the  father  of  Inner  Mis- 
sions, in  Hamburg,  in  1848.  At  present  no  fewer 
than  71  German  cities  are  thoroughly  organized  in 
this  respect,  and  in  this  service  22o  missionaries 
are  employed,  of  whom  41  are  regularly  ordained 
pastors  ;  and  in  addition  57  women  workers  and 
158  volunteers.  Naturally  in  Berlin  the  work 
has  assumed  the  largest  proportions.  Its  annual 
income  is  180.000  marks,  and  its  workers  average 
80.000  house  visits  a  year.     Its  work  has  been  an 


90         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

inestimable  benefit  to  the  Protestant  Church  of 
Germany. 

3.  Working  men's  Colonies. — There  was  recently 
assembled  in  the  city  of  Berlin  a  congress  consist- 
ing of  representatives  of  the  thirty-two  working- 
men's  colonies,  which  have  been  established 
throughout  the  Empire  and  which  have  been  doing 
an  inestimable  good  in  the  solution  of  the  social 
problem  in  general  and  of  the  tramp  perplexity  in 
particular.  These  colonies  consist  of  farms  and 
factories,  in  which  the  unemployed  can  find 
opportunity  for  work,  a  temporary  home  under 
Christian  influences,  and  the  chance  to  retrieve  a 
lost  manhood  and  respectable  standing  in  society. 
They  are  a  kind  of  Keely  institute  for  tramps, 
voluntary  and  involuntary,  who  are  anxious  to 
reform.  The  whole  movement,  inaugurated  on  a 
somewhat  small  scale  by  Pastor  von  Bodel- 
schwingh,  at  Bielefeld,  is  essentially  a  specimen  of 
the  charity  activity  of  the  Church  of  Germany, 
although  in  recent  years  the  political  authorities 
have  also  aided  in  the  worthy  project.  The  soul 
and  leader  of  the  whole  movement  is  still  the 
indefatigable  Pastor  von  Bodelschwingh,  and  at 
Bielefeld  he  has  a  combination  of  institutions  that 
operate  on  a  grand  scale,  and  the  Williamsdorf 
colony,  at  that  place,  has  an  income  of  more  than 
a  million  marks,  and  is  the  largest  establishment  of 
its  kind  in  the  country.  From  the  reports  of  this 
institution  and  of  the  Berlin  Convention  we  repro- 
duce the  following  data,  indicative  of  the  spirit 
and  tendency  of  these  unique  establishments  of 
practical  Christian  charity  : 

The  Williamsdorf  institution,  before  it  had 
been  established  a  year,  had  more  than  two  hun- 
dred colonists,  and  now  the  number  often  goes 
above  a  thousand.     The  colonists  are  composed  of 


INNER     MISSION     WORK.  91 

all  classes  and  conditions  of  unfortunates.  Tt  is  a 
mistake  to  think  that  they  are  recruited  only  <<i' 
the  low  and  lost  of  the  nations.  There  are  men 
here  who  have  been  in  the  army,  who  have  gradu- 
ated in  the  colleges  and  even  tin-  universities,  offi- 
cials of  state,  such  as  postmasters  and  the  like  ; 
on.'  was  a  former  officer  with  the  iron  cross; 
another  had  been  a  wealthy  landowner  at  one 
time:  another  had  been  a  superintendent  of  coal 
mines;  another  had  been  a  successful  physician. 
I  [ereare  found  teachers  and  pupil.-,  clerks,  writers, 
and  almost  all  conditions  and  stations  in  life  repre- 
sented by  men  who  have  fallen  from  the  higher 
ranks.  Half  of  the  colonists  have  at  times  been 
in  contact  with  the  police  and  one-fifth  were  former 
convicts. 

As  soon  as  these  men  apply  for  admittance,  they 
are  given  a  bath  and  a  suit  of  clothes.  In  most 
cases  the  old  clothes  are  burned;  or,  if  still  in  a 
respectable  condition,  are  fumigated  and  laid  aside, 
to  be  restored  to  the  owner  when  he  leaves  the 
colony,  which  he  can  do  at  any  time,  there  being 
no  compulsion  in  the  matter  nor  limit  of  time,  the 
only  object  being  the  reformation  of  the  unfortu- 
nates. The  colonist  will  pay  for  his  suit  out  of 
the  first  money  which  he  earns.  At  once  he  is 
assigned  to  some  work.  and.  as  at  Williamsdorf, 
practically  all  trades  are  represented,  and  farming 
and  gardening  are  done  on  an  extensive  scale. 
There  is  always  opportunity  for  work  for  all  who 
come.  The  suits  worn,  however,  have  nothing  of 
the  nature  of  a  uniform,  so  that  the  colonists  can- 
not he  recognized  by  their  outward  appearance. 
The  first  two  weeks  the  colonists  do  not  receive  any 
wages,  but  after  that  they  receive  20  pfennigs  a 
day.  which  is  gradually  increased,  until  by  the 
end    of   the  first   month   it    is    doubled.     In   the 


92        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

course  of  time  the  wages  reach  the  sum  received 
by  others  engaged  in  the  same  kind  of  work. 
This  money  is,  however,  not  paid  out  to  the  colo- 
nists, but  credited  to  them,  and  given  them  when 
they  leave  the  colony.  It  is,  however,  not  gener- 
ally paid  to  them  directly  ;  but,  since  arrange- 
ments are  generally  made  for  work  by  the  authori- 
ties before  a  colonist  leaves,  the  money  is  sent  to 
the  employer  who  has  engaged  the  men.  In  case 
of  necessity  a  railroad  ticket  is  given  them  ;  or,  if 
the  journey  is  made  on  foot,  arrangement  for 
food  and  shelter  is  made  along  the  way,  which 
arrangement  is  a  part  of  the  fixed  policy  of  the 
colonies.  In  general,  as  little  money  as  possible 
is  given  directly  into  the  hands  of  the  departing 
colonist,  in  order  that  the  saloons  and  other  places 
of  evil  may  not  tempt  him  again  to  fall.  Experi- 
ence has  shown  that  the  great  majority  of  colonists 
are  thankful  for  these  arrangements,  and  gladly 
submit  to  them. 

During  the  time  they  are  in  the  colony  each  and 
every  man  who  is  able  must  work,  beginning  early 
in  the  morning.  Strict  discipline  prevails  through- 
out, but  tempered  with  Christian  kindness  and 
charity.  No  punishment  is  inflicted,  except  dis- 
missal from  the  colony,  in  the  case  of  those  who 
will  not  submit.  These  cases  are  rare,  as  the 
applicants  are  generally  men  who  are  really  anx- 
ious to  reform,  and  in  many  cases  only  lack  the 
will  or  are  victims  of  surroundings. 

These  workingmen's  colonies,  according  to  the 
latest  reports,  harbored  last  year  more  than  thirty- 
two  thousand  men,  and  have  been  great  agencies 
for  good.  Until  recently  such  institutions  existed 
only  for  men,  but  lately  an  establishment  of 
the  kind  was  also  opened  for  women.  They  are 
not  altogether  self-supporting,  but  the  deficit  is 


INNER     mission     WORK.  93 

easily  made  up  by  contributions  from  the  Churches 
and  private  individuals  throughout  the  country. 
They  are  on  all  hands  recognized  as  noble  monu- 
ments of  practical  Christian  charity.  The  Catho- 
lics, in  imitation  of  the  Protestant  precedent,  have 
established  four  such  colonies. 

The  genius  and  leader  of  this  department  of 
Inner  Missions  is  Pastor  von  Bodelschwingh,  whose 
motto  is,  "The  need  is  never  greater  than  the 
helper,"  and  who  has  collected  from  charitable 
people  the  8,100,000  marks  which  his  105,000 
colonists  have  cost  him,  in  addition  to  what  they 
themselves  have  earned.  None  of  these  establish- 
ments have  any  endowment. 

4.  Spread  of  Christian  Literature. — Germany  is 
the  greatest  book-producing  country  of  the  world, 
its  annual  output  fast  approaching  the  25.000 
line.  Of  this  literature,  a  marked  portion  is  dis- 
tinctly Christian  and  Protestant.  Quite  naturally, 
a  large  percentage  is  also  anti-Christian.  The 
Central  Committee  of  the  Inner  Mission  work  has 
also  organized  a  thorough  crusade  against  the  in- 
fluence of  nefarious  publications,  and  has  made 
the  spread  of  Christian  literature  a  matter  of  great 
prominence.  Naturally  the  chief  attention  in  this 
regard  is  paid  to  the  Book  of  books,  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  various  Bible  Societies  of  Germany, 
of  which  there  arc  nine  chief  and  a  number  of 
subordinate  ones,  with  a  total  output  of  nearly 
500,000  Bibles  per  year,  are  naturally  not  under 
the  management  of  the  Inner  Mission  people, 
but  antedate  the  organization  of  this  work.  'Flic 
oldest  and  most  influential  of  them,  the  Canstein 
BibleSociety  of  Halle,  which  has  managed  the  pre- 
paration and  the  publication  of  the  Revised  Luther 
Bible,  dates  from  the  days  of  August  Hermann 
Francke.      But  the   Inner  Mi-ion   workers  make 


94        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

excellent  use  of  the  pul  dications  of  these  societies  for 
their  propaganda,  as  they  also  do  of  the  seven 
great  Tract  Societies,  four  of  which  since  their  estab- 
lishment have  issued  ninety  million  of  tracts.  The 
work  of  distributing  these  Bibles,  Testaments,  tracts, 
etc. ,  is  thoroughly  organized  in  every  rank  of  life. 
The  weekly  edition  of  Stock er'  s  ' '  Penny  Sermons ' ' 
is  now  220,000  copies.  On  certain  special  Church 
days  the  edition  is  simply  enormous.  Thus  on  the 
"  Todenfest,"  the  last  Sunday  of  the  Church  year, 
in  which  the  memory  of  those  who  have  departed 
during  the  year  are  recalled  in  all  of  the  Churches 
and  the  graves  are  visited,  no  fewer  than  550,000 
copies  were  sold  in  1899.  The  periodical  press  is 
well  utilized  for  Christian  purposes,  as  an  antidote 
against  the  indifferent  or  anti-Christian  periodicals 
that  crowd  the  markets.  The  German  Christians 
have  understood  how  to  make  excellent  use  of  the 
periodical  and  newspaper  press.  There  are  over  200 
papers  published  in  Germany  which  are  pro- 
nouncedly and  avowedly  Christian,  and  these  have 
a  combined  circulation  of  over  three  million. 
Rather  remarkably  the  Christians  have  solved 
the  Sunday-paper  problem  by  practically  monop- 
olizing that  day  for  their  own  purposes.  There  are 
nearly  two  hundred  Christian  papers  published 
late  on  Saturday  night  in  Germany,  and  scattered 
in  millions  of  copies  among  the  people  on  the 
Lord's  clay.  Some  of  these  Christian  papers  have 
enormous  circulations.  The  ' '  Nachbar ' '  issues 
an  edition  of  150,000  ;  the  Berlin  Sonntagsblatt 
one  of  120,000  ;  the  paper  called  "  Fur  Alle,"  an 
edition  of  172,000  ;  the  Stuttgart  Sunday  paper 
of  100,000. 

Nearly  the  entire  almanac  literature  of  Germany 
is  in  the  hands  of  Christians.     Statistics  tell  us 


INNEBi     MISSION     WORK.  95 

that  no  fewer  than  64  Christian  year  books  are 
published  in  that  country,  which  circulation  is 
more  than  two  million  copies.  No  fewer  than  322 
religious  organizations,  such  as  Synods,  large  and 
small,  conferences,  etc.,  have  special  colporteurs 
employed  in  the  spread  of  christian  literature. 
In  9358  different  places  libraries  have  been  estab- 
lished under  Christian  auspices,  of  which  3569 
were  founded  by  Christian  ministers,  and  2439 
school  libraries  have  been  established  forasimilar 
purpose.  Thus  there  are  56  Christian  publication 
concerns,  maintained  by  various  organizations,  and 
all  working  in  the  interest  of  Christian  literature. 
Indeed,  in  this  department  the  Inner  Mission  men 
have  been  doing  magnificent  work,  and  it  is  one 
of  the  most  beneficial  of  the  many  1  tranches  of 
this  great  charity.  The  largest  among  these 
special  associations  is  the  Berlin  ;t  Chiistlichi 
Zritschriften  Verein"  which  provides  Christian 
hooks  and  periodicals  to  hospitals,  prisons,  bar- 
racks, factories,  etc.,  etc.,  at  an  annual  outlay  of 
40.000  marks.  Its  branches  extend  all  over  the 
Empire,  and  its  volunteer  contributors  and  helpers 
number  more  than  ten  thousand.  Under  its 
auspices  are  published  twenty  separate  papers  in 
various  cities,  and  these,  together  with  the  papers 
to  Which  it  furnishes  printing  matter,  circulate 
704,000  copies.  The  tendency  of  this  association 
is  patriotic  as  well  as  Christian,  aiming  to  serve 
both  the  Lord  and  the  Emperor.  One  branch  of 
this  propaganda  has  been  found  to  he  especially 
useful,  namely.  t<»  supply  the  secular  press  with 
reliable  news  concerning  the  Church  and  her  do- 
ings. This  department  sends  such  data  to  no 
fewer  than  1091  different  papers  and  periodicals, 
and  of  these  130  print  special  Sunday  .-elections 


90        THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

and  318  fiction,  and  855  are  regularly  supplied 
with  suitable  articles  on  the  great  festivals  of  the 
Church  as  these  come  around. 

5.    Fight   against    Alcoholism.  —  The   temperance 

movement  has  assumed  great  proportions  in  Ger- 
many in  recent  years,  although  total  abstinence  is 
not  considered  as  the  only  cure  for  this  evil  by 
the  masses  who  work  for  improvement  in  this 
line.  Of  the  various  societies  that  are  engaged  in 
this  crusade,  only  one,  the  Good  Templer  order, 
avowedly  advocates  entire  abstinence.  This  is, 
however,  not  a  religious  order  ;  has  a  membership 
of  4000  in  forty  lodges,  and  seems  to  be  most 
strongly  represented  among  the  school  teachers. 
The  official  programme  of  this  branch  of  the 
Inner  Mission  work  states  that  its  purposes  are  : 
The  introduction  of  non-alcoholic  drinks,  estab- 
lishment of  restaurants  without  intoxicants,  es- 
tablishment of  coffee  houses,  care  of  those  who 
are  trying  to  fight  the  demon,  and  in  other  purely 
practical  ways  to  counteract  the  great  evil.  The 
number,  however,  of  separate  societies  that  advo- 
cate total  abstinence  is  increasing,  especially 
among  the  teachers  and  the  physicians.  The 
"German  Society  to  Combat  the  Abuse  of  Spirit- 
uous Drinks"  is  the  most  notable  of  the  larger 
associations,  and  enjoys  the  co-operation  of  hun- 
dreds of  Inner  Mission  workers.  Its  membership 
now  is  about  12,000,  and  these  are  organized  into 
36  larger  and  109  branch  societies.  Their  organ, 
the  Massigkeitsblatter,  has  an  annual  circulation  of 
nearly  100,000  copies,  and  the  more  popular  Blat- 
ter zum  Westergeben,  of  125,000  copies.  This  or- 
ganization, too,  keeps  editors  supplied  with  news 
of  the  work,  having  regular  connections  with  650 
papers.  It  aims  to  exert  special  influence  on  the 
magistrates  and  others  in  the  higher  positions  of 


INNER     mission     WORK.  97 

life.  Their  representatives  deliver  lectures  in  peni- 
tentiaries, prisons,  and  other  places,  where  the 
information  they  give  is  badly  needed.  Efforts 
are  made  to  influence  legislation  in  favor  of  the 
anti-alcoholic  movement. 

The  •"  Blue  Cross"  Society  is  more  pronounced 
in  its  religious  character  and  tendencies,  and  its 
membership  throughout  the  Fatherland  is  fully 
9000,  while  it  is  13,000  in  Switzerland,  where  the 
movement  originated.  It  aims  to  reform  the 
drunkard  through  the  Gospel  and  Christian  teach- 
ings, and   in  its  twenty  years  of  activity  lias  done 

excellent    Work. 

The  result  of -this  propaganda  is  apparenl  on 
all  sides.  There  has  actually  been  a  decrease  in 
the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks  in  Germany  in  recent 
year-,  the  decrease  being  from  4.7  litres  per  head 
annually  to  4.2  per  head.  Even  as  it  was.  Prot- 
estant Germany  had  not  the  worst  record  in  this 
respect,  but  in  Catholic  Belgium  the  average  was, 
and  still  is.  12  litres  for  each  man.  woman,  and 
child  in  the  country.  In  1888,  out  of  each  100 
cases  brought  to  the  hospitals  of  Germany,  2.7 
percent,  was  attributable  to  alcoholism  ;  now  only 
1.3  percent,  i^  to  the  credit,  or  discredit,  of  this 
cause.  The  whole  subject  of  temperance  has 
(■dine  into  the  forefront  in  recent  years  t<>  a  re- 
markable degree,  and  Church  influences  and 
societies,  and  public  assemblies  of  various  kinds, 
are  discussing  the  matter,  and  that  not  only  in 
Church  circles,  hut  also  in  society  in  general,  in 
the  lecture  rooms  of  the  universities,  etc.  Only 
recently  the  leading  professorsof  the  University  of 
Bonn  issued  a  joint  appeal  to  university  circles  to 
aid  in  counteracting  the  evil,  which  is  so  harmful 
to  the  students.  A  prominent  German  Church 
writer  recently  said  :  "  It  is  becomea  part  of  good 
7 


98         THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

society  manners,  in  some  places,  to  be  a  total  ab- 
stainer." A  noteworthy  indication  of  the  inroads 
which  the  propaganda  is  making  in  the  alcohol 
business  is  the  singular  appeal  which  the  Berlin 
dealers  made  in  this  matter  to  the  Berlin  General 
Synod,  in  which  they  asked  for  the  influence  of 
that  body  against  the  temperance  crusade,  on  the 
ground  that  they  represented  a  business  that  sup- 
plied young  men,  who  had  no  family  ties,  with  a 
home,  and  in  that  way  kept  them  from  becoming- 
moral  wrecks,  and  that  they  accordingly  cultivated 
"an  inner  Christian  religious  spirit."  Pastor 
Schneider,  in  his  Theologisches  Jahrbuch,  says  : 
1 '  Temperance  reform  is  no  longer  a  timid  and  rid- 
iculed movement  in  Germany.  It  is  advancing 
with  flying  banners,  although  it  has  not  yet  se- 
cured its  triumph.  But  the  new  generation  will 
and  must  surpass  the  present  in  this  great  field." 
6.  Fight  against  Public  Immorality. — The  com- 
bat with  prostitution  and  public  immorality  in 
general  has  also  assumed  notable  proportions  in 
Germany  under  the  direction  of  the  Inner  Mission 
organizations.  The  social  evil  had  spread  terribly, 
and  in  Berlin  alone  no  less  than  50,000  women 
were  plying  their  trade,  and  had  infected  150,000 
men.  The  work  is  carried  on  under  the  direction 
of  the  "  General  Conference  of  German  Morality 
Societies,"  which  has  been  in  existence  a  dozen 
years,  and  is  represented  in  local  societies  all  over 
the  country.  Its  chief  aim  is  to  protect  women 
from  falling  into  this  great  social  sin,  and,  in  case 
they  have  already  fallen,  to  reform  them  by  the 
aid  of  Gospel  methods.  It  is  distinctly  a  Chris- 
tian and  Protestant  enterprise,  as  is  all  of  Inner 
Mission  work.  In  order  to  redeem  those  that  are 
lost  in  this  respect,  Magdalen  a  homes  have  been 
established   all   over   the   country,  and   in   these 


INNEB     MISSION     WORK 


99 


those  women  who  are  anxious  to  reform  have 
a  home  and  receive  Christian  treatment,  until 
they  are  considered  strong  enough  to  be  allowed 
to  go  and  work  lias  been  secured  for  them,  if 
possible  in  Christian  families.  Of  such  institu- 
tions there  are  eighteen  in  Germany,  with  room 
for  1100  women,  the  latest  reports  giving  822  in- 
mates. The  oldest  and  largest  of  these  is  in 
Bonn,  established  in  1873.  One  peculiar  phase 
of  this  branch  is  the  Depot  Mission  work,  which 
sends  to  all  leading  stations  and  trains  its  repre- 
sentatives to  take  in  charge  and  furnish  with  a 
temporary  home  the  scores  and  hundreds  of  girls 
who  corneas  strangers  to  Berlin  and  other  centres  in 
order  to  find  employment,  and  thus  protect  these 
strangers  from  the  snares  of  city  sharks.  Such 
arrangements  have  been  made  in  1211  German 
towns.  A  part  of  the  work  done  by  this  section 
of  Inner  Missions  is  in  the  shape  of  warnings  ad- 
dressed to  the  young  women  throughout  the  Em- 
pire against  dangerous  advertisements  for  help, 
especially  for  foreign  countries.  A  special  branch 
of  this  work  is  the  Society  of  the  White  Cross, 
which  has  only  lately  been  introduced  into  Ger- 
many from  Scotland,  but  already  numbers  200 
Societies,  with  a  membership  of  20,000.  It  aims 
t«»  labor  chiefly  among  the  young  men,  at  univer- 
sities, colleges,  seminaries,  and  elsewhere  in  favor 
of  social  purity.  In  addition  Versorgungshduser 
for  homeless  and  friendless  women  and  girls  have 
been  established,  which  together  reported  4910 
who  were  helped  during  the  year  1898.  _  Work- 
ing-women colonies  have  also  been  established  to 
counteract  the  evil  of  female  tramps  and  give  such 
the  chance  tor  reform.  Special  impetus  has  been 
given  to  this  morality  crusade  by  certain  revela- 
tions of  the  deplorable  condition  that  prevails  in 


100      THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

this  regard  in  many  German  cities,  as  the  facts 
in  connection  with  the  Lex  Hclnze  and  the  Sternberg 
trial  in  Berlin  became  public  property.  The  gov- 
ernment has  been  called  upon  to  pass  more  strin- 
gent laws  with  reference  to  the  prostitution  evil, 
and  German  society  as  well  as  German  Chris- 
tianity seems  thoroughly  aroused  in  this  matter. 

7.  Rettungahauser. — Under  this  head  are  to  be 
included  a  vast  variety  of  institutions  of  many 
kinds,  the  object  of  each  and  every  one  of  which 
is  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  the  poor,  and  neg- 
lected, and  needy.  The  model  for  the  majority 
of  them  is  the  great  orphan  home  in  Halle,  origi- 
nally established  by  August  Hermann  Francke, 
but  it  includes  other  establishments  than  or- 
phan homes,  such  as  houses  of  refuge,  homes 
for  the  blind,  the  deaf,  and  the  dumb,  and  unfor- 
tunate outcasts  of  various  kinds  and  character. 
Nowhere  else  is  there  a  larger  collection  or  a 
greater  variety  of  such  homes  than  is  found  in 
Bielefeld,  near  the  Rhine,  where  there  is  a  regular 
Inner  Mission  colony,  consisting  of  perhaps 
twenty-five  different  houses,  all  managed  by  the  or- 
ganizing and  administrative  genius  of  Pastor  von 
Bodelschwingh,  formerly  a  high  Prussian  official, 
but  now  a  most  successful  servant  for  a  higher 
Master  and  King.  The  income  of  these  institu- 
tions, which  is  derived  almost  entirely  from  char- 
ity is  more  than  a  million  marks  per  annum. 
The  Bielefeld  collection  of  homes,  in  which  not 
only  the  various  needs  of  modern  charity  arc 
taken  into  consideration,  but  even  the  various  sta- 
tions and  ranks  of  the  applicants  and  inmates,  is 
one  of  the  sights  of  Germany,  and  an  object  les- 
son for  the  Christians  of  the  world.  Fully  4000 
unfortunates  of  various  kinds  are  here  taken  care 
of.     The  German  Emperor  has  repeatedly  recog- 


INNER     MISSION     WORK.  101 

nized  the  vast  good  thai  hasgoneout  from  Biele- 
feld, and  only  recently  again  he  and  the  Empress 
made  a  visit  to  tins  colony.  In  all  there  are  343 
Rettungshauser  in  Germany.  Wichern's  Rauhe 
Hans  in  Hamburg  was  originally  an  institution  of 
this  kind,  a  school  for  poor  hoys  and  girls,  in 
which  both  were  thoroughly  equipped  for  life  by 
learning  a  trade  and  domestic  work. 

v.  The  Young  Men1 s  Societies  of  Germany  are  in 
many  particulars  closely  akin  to  the  Y.  M.  ( I.  A., 
and  many  of  the  former  belong  to  the  interna- 
tional association  of  the  latter.  Probably  the 
leading  characteristic  of  the  German  societies  con- 
sists in  the  close  connection  between  them  and 
the  congregate  >ns,  as  would  be  natural  in  a  country 
where  all  arc  nominally  at  least  in  connection  with 
the  Church.  The  object  is  stated  to  be  "the 
training  of  Christian  personalities  for  Church  and 
congregation.' '  They  have  in  recent  year-  been 
particularly  active  in  city  mis-ion  work,  especially 
in  Berlin,  where  among  the  Mores  of  colporteurs, 
who  each  Sunday  go  to  the  restaurants,  hack- 
stands, and  wherever  men  are  to  be  found  wh< 
cannot  attend  public  service,  offer  a  print 
sermon,  there  are  many  members  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Societies.  Indeed,  it  is  claimed 
that  fully  17<>()  men  of  this  kind  are  engaged  in 
some  form  of  mission  work  for  the  Church  in  the 
various  centres  of  population  in  the  Empire.  For 
this  reason  the  congregations  have  in  recent  years 
hern  taking  a  warmer  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Young  Men's  Societies.  The  total  number  of 
societies  is  L700,  with  a  membership  of  85,000. 

9.  Young  Women's  Societies. — The  woman  ques- 
tion is  very  much  in  the  forefront  in  Germany  at 
present,  and  the  Young  Women's  Societies  aim 
to  make  use  of  this  movement   for  the  needs  and 


ed 


102      THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

requirements  of  Christian  charity.  There  is  a  na- 
tional organization  of  this  character,  consisting  of 
2730  societies,  and  with  several  papers  devoted  to 
their  own  needs.  In  general,  the  object  of  the 
societies  is  to  co-operate  in  works  of  love  and 
charity  wherever  the  help  of  women  is  required. 

10.  Workingmen }s  Associations. — These  are  so- 
cieties organized  among  the  workingmen  for  the 
special  purpose  of  counteracting  the  baneful  in- 
fluence of  social  democracy,  and  of  keeping  the 
workingmen  in  the  churches.  The  Protestant  so- 
cieties of  this  kind  number  90,000  adherents, 
while  the  Catholic  societies  have  a  membership  of 
154,000.  The  head  of  the  national  Protestant 
association  is  the  active  agitator,  Pastor  Weber,  of 
Gladbach,  near  Munich,  who  is  also  a  leader  in 
the  Christian  social  movement,  which  has  in  gen- 
eral a  similar  purpose,  namely,  of  keeping  the 
masses  out  of  the  clutches  of  the  godless  social 
democratic  party.  The  means  of  agitation  are 
meetings,  literature,  and  the  like. 

11.  Herbergen  zur  Heimat. — Throughout  Ger- 
many, in  all  the  larger  cities  and  towns,  homes 
have  been  established  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
traveling  public,  especially  workingmen,  who  need 
not  go  to  the  public  hotels,  but  can  go  to  these 
Herbergen,  where  morning  and  evening  worship 
is  held,  grace  is  said  at  table,  services  are  held  on 
Sunday,  prayer-meetings  regularly  conducted, 
and  the  traveler  is  sure  to  find  congenial  Christian 
companions.  Many  of  these  homes  are  particu- 
larly adapted  to  the  needs  of  workingmen,  who 
thus  are  kept  out  of  the  public  houses  and  drink- 
ing places.  There  are  455  such  homes,  which,  in 
1897,  lodged  1,613,000  guests,  and  secured  work 
for  113,000  of  these  visitors.  In  connection  with 
about    half    of    these   homes    there    are   hospital 


INNEE     MISSION     WORK.  103 

rooms.     ( !harges  are  made  just  high  enough  to  pay 
expenses. 

Indeed,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  report  in  full 
the  many  good  things  thai  the  [nner  Mission 
workers  in  Germany  have  been  doing  and  are  still 
doing.  Probably  the  best  commentary  on  this 
usefulness  is  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church  lias 
been  compelled  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Prot- 
estants. In  this  regard  it  has.  three  years  ago,  or- 
ganized its  "  Charitas ' '  movement,  which  is  prac- 
tically the  same  as  the  Inner  Missions  of  the  Prot- 
estants. Germany,  which  is  unfavorably  known 
in  many  circles  on  account  of  its  negative  criti- 
cism, though  this  is  really  only  the  work  of  some 
savants  and  not  of  the  Church  in  general,  deserves 
to  be  better  known  on  account  of  the  vast  Christian 
enterprises  of  its  Inner  Mission  work,  in  which 
virtually  all  Germany  participates,  and  which  is 
the  best  expression  of  the  real  faith  and  conser- 
vative Christianity  of  the  Church  in  the  land  of 
Luther.  While,  on  account  of  peculiar  circum- 
stances and  conditions,  the  mission  work  of  Ger- 
many could  not  he  in  all  of  its  features  reproduced 
and  repeated  in  other  Christian  lands,  the  intense 
enthusiasm  of  its  workers  deserves  commendation, 
and  many  of  its  features,  e.  .7..  the  work  of  the 
deaconesses,  in  congregational  activity  could  very 
readily  be  adopted  anywhere,  especially  in  larger 
cities.  Inner  Mission  work,  as  an  expression  of 
extensive  Christian  activity  and  as  a  blessed  fulfill- 
ment of  the  law  of  love,  deserves  close  study. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

NATIONAL    CHURCH    ORGANIZATIONS. 

The  immense  aggregation  of  Christian  and  Prot- 
estant forces  which  have  been  organized  into  an 
army  of  workers  for  the  cause  of  the  Church  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Inner  Mission  propaganda  by 
no  means  completes  the  story  of  what  German 
Christianity  has  done  and  is  doing  to  solve  the 
practical  problems  of  the  times.  In  many  other 
ways  have  the  zeal  and  the  faith  of  the  German 
Christians  effected  a  union  of  heart  and  hand  for 
the  purpose  of  doing  what  the  needs  of  the  hour 
demand  in  order  to  fulfill  the  requirements  which 
Christianity  places  upon  its  adherents.  It  is  pos- 
sible here  to  mention  in  outline  only  a  few  leading- 
organizations  of  this  sort  which  can  really  be  called 
national. 

1.  The  Gustavus  Adolphus  Verein. — The  largest 
and  doubtless  the  most  influential  of  these  na- 
tional Church  organizations  is  the  Gustavus 
Adolphus  Society,  founded  in  1832.  Its  purpose 
is  to  provide  for  those  Protestants  who  live  in 
Roman  Catholic  neighborhoods,  and  who  cannot 
themselves  make  provision  to  supply  their  spirit- 
ual wants,  and  hence  are  in  danger  of  losing  their 
Protestant  consciousness  and  faith.  It  has  accord- 
ingly been  named  after  the  great  Swedish  king, 
whose  work  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War  reallv  saved 
(104) 


NATIONAL    CHURCH    ORGANIZATIONS.  L05 

the   Protestant   cause  from   being  crushed  by  the 
hosts  of   Rome.     The  society  is  organized  entirely 
along  general  Protestant  lines,  intends  to  serve  the 
whole  Protestant  Church  in  all  of  its  branches,  and 
hence  ignores  the  denominational  differences  and 
distinctions.      Its  work  consists  chiefly  in  building 
churches,  school-houses,  and  parsonages  for  poor 
congregations,    supplying  them  with  pastors  and 
teachers,  and  in  general   helping  them  until  they 
,-an   become  self-supporting.     The  society  really 
consists  of  a  union  of  local  associations  scattered 
all  over  Germany,  of  which  there  are  at    present 
1891,    to    which"  are    to   be   added    563    special 
women  societies.     The  income  lias  for  many  years 
passed  the   million-mark  line,  and.   according  to 
the    last    annual    report,     had    been     1,384,956 
marks.     In  addition  to  this,  the  45  chief  societies 
into  which  the  local  societies  are  combined   have 
endowments  valued  at  nearly  six  million  marks. 
The    legacies    during    the    past    twelve    months 
amounted  to  446,828  marks.     During  this  same 
year   the  society    has    tinished  35  church   build- 
ings, 13  parsonages,  8  school-houses,  and  had  be- 
gun the  erection  of  29  new  churches,  8  parsonages, 
and    2   school-houses:  58  congregations  had  be- 
come self-supporting  during  the  year,  while  only 
8  new  congregations  were  added  to  the  list.     The 
hulk    of     the    congregations   supported    by    the 
society  are  found  in  Catholic  Silesia,    viz..  133; 
while  East    Prussia  has  22 ;    West    Prussia,    81; 
Posen,    110;    the    Rhine   districts,    84;   Bavaria, 
112  ;    the    Palatinate,    54  ;    Baden,    108  ;    Alsace 
Lorraine.  39.     The  work  is  by  no  means  confined 
to  Germany.      Especially  have  the  Austrian  prov- 
inces adjoining  Germany  profited  by  the  generos- 
itv   of  the   Verein.      It 'has   aided   materially  the 


106      THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

lk  Los  von  Rom"  movement  in  Austria,  especially 
by  distributing  Bibles,  prayer  books,  and  pam- 
phlets, erecting  churches,  etc.  In  Bohemia  the 
society  has  113  stations  ;  in  Moravia,  56  ;  in  Aus- 
tria Silesia,  32  ;  in  Upper  Austria,  15  ;  in  Lower 
Austria,  13  ;  in  Steiermark,  21  ;  in  Tyrol,  8  ;  in 
Galesia  and  Bukowena,  124  ;  in  Transylvania,  81  ; 
in  Hungary,  95.  In  the  Orient  the  society  has 
done  much  to  help  the  Armenians,  especially  by 
establishing  orphans'  homes  and  supporting 
orphan  children,  and  has  given  the  Emperor  the 
sum  of  36,000  marks,  to  be  expended  by  him  for 
these  purposes.  In  addition  to  these  plaees,  the 
society  carries  on  its  work  in  France,  in  Belgium, 
in  Italy,  in  South  America  and  elsewhere. 

2.  Diaspora  Conference. — In  no  organic  connec- 
tion with  the  Gustavus  Adolphus  Society,  yet  pur- 
suing similar  purposes,  is  the  Diaspora  Conference 
work,  which  aims  to  offer  the  word  of  life  to  the 
Germans  who  are  scattered  in  every  clime  and 
country,  and  who  would  otherwise  be  neglected  if 
the  conference  did  not  send  them  its  representa- 
tives. This  organization  works  not  only  among 
the  Germans  who  are  settled  permanently  in  for- 
eign lands,  and  are  not  provided  for  spiritually, 
but  also  for  such  places  as  summer  resorts,  winter 
resorts,  etc.,  where  a  larger  or  smaller  number 
congregate  for  the  time  being.  The  Diaspora  work 
is  the  most  cosmopolitan  in  the  German  Church, 
and  its  field  is  literal^  the  world. 

3.  The  Lutheran  Gotteskasten. — This  organization 
has  exactly  the  same  general  purposes  as  the 
Gustavus  Adolphus  Society,  but  with  the  exception 
that  its  labors  are  confined  to  the  Lutheran  Church, 
and  that  its  propaganda  is  entirely  for  the  ben- 
efit of  confessional  Lutheranism.     Its  founder  was 


NATIONAL    CHUR< tGANIZATIONS.  107 

the  famous  Leipzig  Church  historian.  Dr.  Kahnis, 
in   1854.       Its   membership   is  entirely  recruited 

from  tlie   Lutheran   State   Churches,    mostly  fr 

North  Germany,  Saxony  and  Hanover  being  the 
chief  contributors.  According  to  its  last  report  its 
yearly  income  was  75,303  mark.-,  which  was  ex- 
pended as  follows  :  For  the  diaspora  of  the  Luth- 
eran State  Churches,  30,997  ;  for  Independent 
Lutheran  Churches  in  Germany,  13,202  ;  for  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, 17,543;  for  other  European  coun- 
tries, 2694  :  for  extra   European  countries,  7958  ; 

for  the  education  of  preacher-  and  teachers.  4635  : 
for  miscellaneous  purposes,  7732  marks.  \n  re- 
cent years  this  God's  treasury  has  found  a  good 
held  in  Brazil. 

4.  The  Evangelical  Bund. — One  of  the  most  ag- 
gressive and  active  associations  in  the  Church  of 
Germany  is  the  Evangelical  Bund,  a  national  or- 
ganization, the  purpose  of  which  is  "to  fight 
Rome  with  tongue  and  pen."  It  is  one  of  the 
fruits  of  the  KuUurkampf.  When  Bismarck  finally 
brought  this  great  contest  with  Lome  to  a  close  by 
a  compromise,  in  which,  according  to  the  opinion 
of  friend  and  foe.  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was 
not  the  loser,  the  Bund  was  organized  at  once,  in 
order  to  protect  Protestant  interests  and  sharpen 
Protestant  consciousness  and  convictions.  Its 
principles  were  wide  and  aimed  to  he  broadly 
Evangelical,  the  bond  of  union  being  rather  the 
negative  principle  of  opposition  to  Lome  than  the 
positive  profession  of  Protestantism.  It  enlisted 
the  sympathies  especially  of  the  educated  classes, 
and  among  its  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  mem- 
bers there  i^  an  exceptionally  large  representation 
of  pastors,  professors,  teachers,  and  others  in  the 
iniiue.ntia.1    ranks    of    life.       Its    chief    means    of 


108      THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

propaganda  is  literature,  agitation,  and  education. 
Among  its  leaders  are  such  men  as  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Beyschlag,  of  Halle,  and  Professor  Nippold, 
of  Jena.  On  account  of  danger  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  many  have  joined  this  organiza- 
tion who  are  not  in  favor  of  the  liberal  theology 
which  is  represented  in  its  leadership  and  its  pro- 
ceedings. Although  the  Bavarian  Protestant  State 
Church  is  very  confessional  in  its  Lutheranism, 
yet  of  the  900  Protestant  pastors  in  the  kingdom 
it  is  claimed  that  400  are  in  hearty  union  with  the 
Bund.  Its  chief  object  of  attack  is  the  Ultra- 
montanism  of  the  modern  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
and  to  this  society  chiefly  is  to  be  attributed  the 
fact  that,  notwithstanding  the  great  political  power 
of  that  Church  in  the  German  states,  they  have 
not  yet  been  able  to  accomplish  their  great  ambi- 
tion, namely,  the  recall  of  the  Jesuit  and  kindred 
orders.  Its  most  notable  acquisition  in  recent 
years  has  been  the  convert,  Count  von  Hoens- 
broech,  formerly  himself  a  Jesuit,  but  now  a 
most  scholarly  antagonist  of  that  order.  How- 
ever much  the  more  or  less  undefined  theological 
position  of  the  Bund  may  subject  it  to  the  criti- 
cism of  those  who  want  clearly  defined  principles, 
the  fact  remains  that  the  society  has  done  much 
to  arouse  Protestant  self-consciousness  in  the  Ger- 
man nation. 

5.  The  Bible  Societies. — While  the  German  Bible 
Societies  do  not  command  the  means  at  the  dis- 
posal of  English  and  the  American  Societies,  yet 
the  former  have  been  exceptionally  fortunate  and 
successful  in  spreading  the  Scripture  in  all  the 
ranks  and  stations  of  life.  The  following  will  give  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  these  nine  societies,  the  statis- 
tics being  those  for  1898  alone  : 


NATIONAL    eJHRell    ORGANIZATIONS. 


109 


V   — 


3.  Berg  Society  of  Elberfeld. 


1.  Prussian  Society 104,381 

2.  Wurtemberg  Society 54,635 

30,615 
31,342 

4,463 

1,532 

2,598 

34,459 


Saxon  bociety 

Nurnberg  Society , 

Alsace  Society  

Schleswig-Holstein  Society  . . , 
Can  stein  Society  of  Halle. . . 


9.  bamburg Society 16,000 


Total  of  German  Societies 280,025 

During    this    same    year    Germany 

used  from  the  British  Societv 55,105 

Scotch  Society *. 29,904 

American  Societv 2,1105 


61,035 

94,705 

65,336 

7,468 

4,673 

2,757 

1,054 

1,967 

11,000 


268 
10,532 
5,280 
272 
395 
210 


250,013 

151,634 

41,143 
7,321 


[65,684 
159,872 
101,231 

39,100 

5,931 

4, -t'.i'.l 

3,652 

36,426 

27.000 


16,597    546,995 


,174 
,985 
300 


238,913 
73,032 

10,529 


Grand  total 367,939    450,111       51,416     869,466 


This  makes  an  average  of  16^  new  Bibles  or 
parts  of  Bibles  to  every  1000  inhabitants  for  this 
one  year,  which  is  an  excellent  showing,  and  is 
an  improvement  on  the  preceding  twelve  months, 
when  it  was  1-1  yV  for  each  1000. 

Some  of  the  features  of  the  Bible  distribution 
methods  which  have  been  adopted  by  these  socie- 
ties are  unique.  One  of  the  noteworthy  facts  is 
that  the  number  of  revised  Luther  Bibles  used  is 
rapidly  increasing.  Special  efforts  are  made  to 
publish  cheap  editions,  one  of  the  New  Testament 
at  10  pfennigs,  or  2  cents,  and  a  whole  Bible,  with 
the  Apocrypha,  at  1  mark,  or  24  cents.  The 
Wurtemberg  Society  also  publishes  an  excellent 
and  critical  edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testament 
for  25  cents.  The  most  of  these  societies  have 
the  rule  of  presenting  each  newly  married  couple 
with  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  and  for  the  year 
covered   by   the   report  they  disposed   of  27,263 


110      THE    PKOTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

copies  for  this  purpose.  The  Wurtemberg  Bible 
Society  also  practically  makes  a  present  to  each 
newly  confirmed  boy  and  girl  of  a  copy  of  the 
Bible,  and  last  year  used  20, 900  copies  for  this 
purpose.  It  also  publishes  an  edition  for  the 
blind,  of  which  kind  they  have  disposed  of  13,288 
copies  of  the  whole  or  parts  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  work  of  these  societies  is  well  organized,  the 
Prussian  alone  having  186  branch  societies  organ- 
ized throughout  the  Empire.  Of  the  10  pfennig 
New  Testament  over  150,000  copies  have  been 
sold.  Special  arrangements  have  been  made  with 
the  political  authorities,  so  that  all  members  of 
the  army  and  navy  have  copies  of  the  Word. 
Saxony  alone,  during  the  year  1898,  secured  from 
the  Saxon  Bible  Society  2143  Bibles  and  1442 
New  Testaments  for  its  army  corps. 

It  will  suffice  to  mention  the  names  and  describe 
briefly  a  number  of  other  Church  organizations,  the 
membership  of  which  are  found  throughout  the 
Empire,  and  which  are  accordingly  national  in 
character. 

Among  these  are  the  Pastors'  Associations, 
called  ' '  Pfarrervereins, ' '  which  aim  to  discuss  the 
interests  of  the  pastoral  calling  and  the  pastors  as 
such,  and  to  emphasize  the  wishes  which  they  can 
reasonably  make  of  the  state  and  of  society.  Among 
others,  it  arranges  to  secure  for  candidates  suitable 
places  and  provides  for  the  needy  daughters  of 
deceased  pastors.  It  has  in  recent  times  especi- 
ally been  engaged  with  the  problem  of  the  rights 
of  the  pastors  as  inspectors  and  visitors  of  the 
public  schools,  particularly  as  far  as  the  religious 
instruction  is  concerned.  Then,  too,  it  has  been 
making  its  influence  felt  in  the  direction  of  a  con- 
solidation of  the  various  German  State  Churches 


NATIONAL    CHURCH    ORGANIZATIONS.  Ill 

into  one  organized  body.     Over  4000  pastors  be- 
long to  these  societies. 

The  Evangelical  Church  Hilfsverein,  organized 
in  1888,  enjoys  the  special  favor  of  both  the  Em- 
peror and  the  Empress,  audits  purpose  is  to  labor 
particularly  in  the  large  congregations,  in  which, 
on  account  of  the  large  number  of  members,  each 
soul  cannot  receive  the  care  at  the  hands  of  the 
regular  pastor  that  it  should  have.  It  purposes 
to  supply  this  deficiency,  and  its  whole  work  is 
to  implant  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  in  the 
hearts  of  the  neglected  masses  of  the  large  city 
charges.  It  is  thus  a  special  branch  of  city  mis- 
sion work,  and  has  done  excellent  work.  It  ex- 
pends about  400,000  marks  per  annum  for  its 
work. 

The  Verein  for  the  History  of  the  Reformation 
aims  at  the  publication  of  new  data  and  material 
from  the  period  that  gave  birth  to  the  Protestant 
Church,  and  its  membership  is  accordingly  re- 
cruited chiefly  from  among  the  professors  of  the 
universities  and  the  educated  ranks  in  general, 
both  pastors  and  laymen.  Its  headquarters  is  in 
Halle,  and  it  expends  per  annum  about  30,000 
marks  and  more  for  its  purposes. 

The  German  Kirchengesang  Verein  is  also  a  society 
of  specialists,  its  aim  being  indicated  by  its  name. 
It  consists  of  21  provincial  organizations,  and  has 
done  much  to  make  the  German  Christians  appre- 
ciate more  keenly  their  great  riches  of  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs  which  it  has  inherited  from  its 
ancestors. 

The  Verein  for  Religious  Art  dates  back  to  1853, 
and  its  purpose  is  to  foster  an  interest  in  and  love 
for  the  beautiful  in  connection  with  Church  archi- 
tecture and  the  public   services.      Its   objects  are 


112      THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH    IN    GERMANY. 

also  liturgical,  and  its  work  is  done  chiefly  through 
its  publications,  for  which  it  expends  each  year 
some  35,000  marks. 

The  Evangelical  Africa  Verein  has  the  Gospel 
interests  of  the  newly  acquired  colonies  in  Africa 
at  heart,  although  its  work  is  somewhat  different 
from  that  of  the  mission  societies,  the  purpose 
being  also  to  educate  and  civilize  in  the  Christian 
sense  the  blacks  under  German  dominion. 

Only  in  comparatively  recent  times  have  the 
Reformed  made  an  effort  to  awaken  a  new  interest 
in  that  Church  and  to  unite  for  work  also  the 
adherents  of  this  communion.  This  resulted  in 
the  organization  of  the  Reformed  Bund  in  1884, 
with  headquarters  in  Berlin.  Its  purposes  are 
chiefly  practical  Church  work,  but  it  also  issues 
a  new  Reformed  Church  paper  and  other  publi- 
cations in  the  interests  of  the  Church. 

These  and  other  associations  and  societies  of 
German  Protestant  Christians  are  at  work,  and  as 
all  of  them  are  doing  this  voluntarily,  with  little 
or  no  assistance  from  the  state,  the  fact  and  the 
success  of  these  undertakings  is  evidently  sufficient 
that  the  Protestants  of  the  land  of  Luther  are  not 
idle  onlookers  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord. 


THE    END. 


Date  Due 

1 

FE  9   '5 

3 

FE  23-53 

(E 

<f> 

BW6005  .S36 

The  Protestant  church  in  Germany.  A 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00018  1547 


